


Not Too Late For Second Chances

by ruthlesslistener



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Ghost is the Shade Lord but really just wants to be Ghost, The Radiance dies and is reborn as a child, Which means that voila now the baby god squad has a third member, akin to the Pale King, and its a very fluffy very bitchy little caterpillar, and to live a normal life for their siblings, without fighting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-02-08 12:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21475696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruthlesslistener/pseuds/ruthlesslistener
Summary: The Shade Lord sinks its claws into Her fading form, and She thinks that it is over. She is dying, Diminished, and this time there is no one left to remember Her. She has no dreams that She can escape into, no realms to flee to. There is nothing that She can do when the Darkness comes and swallows Her whole.When she wakes, it is to the crunch of old chitin and the chilling darkness of the abyss. She is a caterpillar again, weak and helpless, and the newborn Lord of Shades holds no interest in killing her, or reclaiming the lands that their sire once took from her. All they care about is reuniting with their siblings and living a life that they were never meant to have- and if that includes hauling her around to help make peace, then so be it. She can either come to terms with her ancient enemy, or die alone in the shadows...again.When put that way, there's really no choice at all.
Relationships: Grimm & The Radiance (Hollow Knight), The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & Hornet, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Knight
Comments: 376
Kudos: 1082





	1. Prologue: The End of Light

**Author's Note:**

> This originally started as a crack au idea tossed about on discord with some friends (you know who you are) about the Radiance getting reborn into a mortal form like the Pale King and realizing that oops, she really had no need to infect people and start an apocalypse whatsoever, all she had to do was collapse a civilization and then help clean it up when the old god died of guilt. And then, with me being me, it kinda just snowballed from there. Aw fuck.
> 
> Just a fair warning, I have no idea where this is going or ending, I started writing it expecting it to be like 1,000 words at most and now it's 5,000 so it's really just gonna keep on going on without me controlling it much. I mean, it's a crackfic, but if you're expecting serious retribution for miss mothbitch's crimes then it's really not going to come any farther than her being forced to relive her baby years (the most horrifying punishment of all imo)

_ It is dark, and there is no one around to hear Her scream. _

_ She tries anyways. The wound the Void tore in Her throat drips and glows with loosed essence, clogging the memory of a voicebox, but She is a God and the form She took in the dreamworld was only ever a comfort to Her wounded pride anyways. She screams, and screams, howling with all the burning anger holding the scattered bits of Her soul together, but it does not matter. The living darkness coils and chokes, and Her voice dies out before it so much as manifests as a memory of what She used to sound like when Her cry could be heard for miles among the desolate wastelands from which They all rose. _

_ Choked out. Extinguished. Stolen. She has been rendered as mute as the children of the Wyrm have been, when that hapless bastard drowned them in the dark sea. All of them, born to kill Her, born to be mute so that none of the creatures that raised them could hear them cry out their suffering, so that She would never be able to twist their voices to Her benefit. Powerless, useless, unimportant in Her eyes until one of them trapped Her in their mind and their clutchmate returned to finish Her off. Their claws are sunk deep into Her fur, and still She is astounded that they slipped Her grasp and ascended. _

_ She is dying. Her beloved moths had stopped listening to Her ages ago, the only one that survived to remember Her passed to the beyond just before the hatchling came to kill the vessel. She had been dying for centuries, but only now does She feel fear, instead of the all-consuming burning anger that suffused her fading form when the Pale King took her subjects and gave them minds of their own. _

_ Somewhere above Her, beyond the burning, broken white eyes of Her captor’s shade, eight glowing eyes open in the darkness. The claws in Her side tighten, tearing through fluff and carapace. There is a new god in Hallownest, blooded and ascended, and She, twice-forgotten god of light, can do nothing about it. _

_ She tries to heal, to focus. To try to scream again, to try to come to barter with the darkness in a way that She never tried to do with the Pale King, thief of light. But the claws shred through Her body with a violence that drains Her faster than She can think, and before She can try to muster the energy to fight against it, the darkness rises, and swallows Her whole. _


	2. I Diagnose You With Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moths don't have eyelids, like any other insects, but moths also don't normally shoot light from their eyeballs so fuck you biology
> 
> **EDIT** We now have art, done by the talented brandyjin on tumblr! I've included it in the chapter here, but go check it out here (https://brandyjin.tumblr.com/post/189205492185/an-angry-light-goddess-moth-now-trapped-inside-a#notes) so you can like and reblog!

Waking up comes as a surprise.

Tentatively, she opens her first pair of eyelids, trapping her glowing eyes under a thin film lest her shine allow the Shade Lord to pinpoint her location. There is still darkness all around her, but it is not living, it does not wriggle and writhe and scorch her with the weight of its anger and possessiveness. Puffs of darker mist, nearly sentient, coil around her body, but it is lazy and drifting with the purposeless misdirection of primordial energy pools, and so she ignores it, even as it mists in her fur and chills her so deeply that her shivers threaten to wrack her apart. 

...She has not felt cold in millennia. There was no such thing as temperature in the dream realm, and any memory of it that she toyed with never brought discomfort on her end. She should not be vulnerable to the elements. 

With an indignant squeak (and when had her shrieks turned to squeaks?), she struggles to rise, to look around and her surroundings and seek out and destroy the source of her irritation. She never let herself feel the elements when she was delving into the minds of bugs and beasts- nor the pain that inevitably occurred when her attempts to resurrect a body inevitably tore theirs apart- and she wasn’t about to start now. Metamorphosis was never supposed to be a painful thing, no matter the strain it put on the body, and the bugs that the Pale King had gifted will to were not her subjects anyways. Would never be her subjects, as long as their gratitude turned to _ him, _usurper, rival. She had forced their minds open with her songs and her light to feed her fading body, had liquified the guts of the resistant to form her new cocoon. Only the shackles of the vessel had kept her from forming a physical body, the Void of their carapace trapping her within, but she had slowly eaten them from the inside out, too, ignoring the cold burn of the darkness against her spirit, the thrashing panic of their mind. If their sibling hadn’t come to kill her, she was sure that she could have reformed and retaken her territory before long.

She can’t get up.

Her anger vanishes in an instinct. A cold chill thrums through her, one that has nothing to do with the darkness enveloping her. She had died, hadn’t she? She had died in the dream realm- she must be some sort of scattered scrap of a memory floating about in the realm between dreams, like she had when the remains of her tribe had turned their worship to the Wyrm. She had been able to pull herself into a passable form then, there should be no reason why- 

She can’t feel her wings; the brittle, shifting floor under her pokes directly into the fur of her back instead of soft feathers. When she reaches forward, into the darkness, two chubby little forelegs are all that wave out at her, barely peeking out of her fuzz. When she slides back the film covering her eyes, staring in astonishment, the light barely casts farther than her body- her fat, _ little _body- illuminating the shards of broken vessel masks that she lay on. One of them, nearly fully intact, was almost as big as she was.

By the stars, she was a _ caterpillar _again. 

The indignity of her rebirth hit her before the gratitude did, and she let out a shriek of anger that echoed in the oppressive, thrumming air. Again, she tried to struggle upright, but only succeeded in curling and uncurling her clumsy, tubby body- and what a _ useless _ form it was too, so soft and fragile and ungainly- the clatter of the shifting carapace fragments uncomfortably loud in the pulsating quiet of the Abyss. All she managed to do was wriggle herself deeper into the pile, the sharp edges of broken masks poking painfully into her soft side. Her struggles warmed her, at the very least, shivers subsiding as her wrath rekindled her natural glow, but that was a small comfort when she was still on her back, unbalanced and painfully vulnerable.

She never wanted this. Wyrm chose his death and rebirth deliberately, so that he could be free of the tearing violence of his kind, so that he could play dollhouse with the little bugs that he loved so dearly; all she wanted was to share in the joy of her chosen, feeling their awe and delight in her light shiver through their dreams. When she attempted to regain her physical body through the infection, it was with the intention of being reborn as her ascended self, not as a _ larva. _ Not like _ this. _ Had she had a choice in her rebirth, she never would have picked this form again. It was simply undignified.

Across the sea of darkness, something shifts, something awakens from its slumber, drawn by her glow and her desolate squeaking. She feels the pull of its mind the second it flickers into consciousness, moments before those damnable white eyes open and fix unerringly on her wriggling form. The Shade Lord has awakened.

And there’s _ nothing _ she can do about it.

For the second time in millennium, the Radiance feels afraid. She tries to wriggle around again, to flip herself over so her vulnerable underside isn’t left uncovered, but once she rolls onto her side, she can’t reach over to pull herself up, stubby baby legs waving uselessly in the air. Silently, the Shade lord uncurls itself from its perch; she can _see _it coming, can sense the cold twisting of its thoughts, and the fear that grips her paralyses her movements. Quietly, it comes to her from across the abyssal ocean, many arms clumsily propelling its long, serpentine body through the waters, until it towers above her, the soft huffs of its breaths freezing gales that blow her fur wildly back and forth. Where the sloshing of the waters around it should be, there is only silence; distantly, she can hear the quiet echo of the waves, the thrum of not-life permeating this damnable place, the quiet scritch-scratch of the shadow creepers above. But where the God of Shadows lies, no sound escapes; for they are the antithesis to voice, all thought, all of what made her powerful and strong in the days before queens and kings, when the cries of her kin and the beasts below was the only sound permeating the endless wastelands that made up their territories.

She finds, in her instinctive desire to _ get them away, _that she still does have some of her power left, after all. With all the strength and soul her tiny little body can muster, she summons a trio of Swords of Radiant Light, blinding in the clouded darkness, and shoots them right at the Shade Lord. They hone in on it without much prompting from her, drawn in by its inherent gravitas, and sink deep into its snout(?) before it has enough time to do much more than blink one set of eerily-glowing eyes.

The reaction is instantaneous. The Shade Lord reels back, a vibration of not-sound blanketing out all the other ambient sounds of the abyss, and slaps at her with one of its tendrils, lashing out blindly. The flat side of its claw slams into her body with enough force to send her flying through the air, knocking all the breath out of her, and for a good long moment she just lies there, startled and throbbing. They hadn’t torn her open- though they were more than capable of it, the claw that hit her had been bigger than her entire body twice over- but they had bruised her, badly enough that breathing hurt. Distantly, she heard hiccuping, soft and squeaking and desperate, like a newly-hatched larvae struggling to breathe. It took her a second to realize that it was her. 

With a not-rumble, the Shade Lord creeps closer again, sliding slowly over the sea of old husks to her. There is something almost...hesitant about it, something shivering on the edge of its aura that feels familiar. Like it was being submissive, asking for forgiveness. Tentatively, she reaches out to touch minds to it, her anger and instinctual defensiveness at the presence of another god frozen under her shock at being thrown around.

The regret she feels is less of a quantified understanding of the emotion, and more like a feeling gone physical, a sensation that washes over her like the tide and clenches her self into a tight, defensive little ball. The creatures of Void do not think in words; she knows well enough from ages spent clawing at the mind of her captor, sifting through memories and emotions that churned and slipped through their grasp like slithering black oil. But that vessel was weak, and raised in the Light of its father, watching and learning from other bugs and gods until it was something she could very nearly understand herself, even though touching its Shade hurt her. This new god- Void given mind and form- had possession of their greater form barely longer than she had her new caterpillar body, and its mind cascades through hers in a slippery waterfall of sensation that she can barely begin to parse, let alone begin to attach labels to.

** _Tight-in-thorax bile-in-throat hurt echo hurt. Hurt not thought of not planned. Hurt in mask electricity crackle-through-skin arm lash out not thought hurt small soft that was enemy-not-enemy. Not want. Enemy-not-enemy anymore hurt not-needed. Ache in thorax ache everywhere not place to sleep nothing-here siblings safe siblings with Shade siblings with web lost above hurt cracked distant. Fight done territory safe sibling safe no more hurt did hurt now cramping bad not supposed to be here put-back hurt fix. She hurt? They fix? _ **

“Stu.” Her mandibles are not formed to make physical words, not yet, and she lets out a huff of exasperation and shoves her frustration out for the Shade Lord to take, where she’s sure even a void being like them can understand it. Rising onto her back legs to wave at them is a wobbly process, and an achy one, but feeling like she had some semblance of control over her new body was more than worth it. _ Stop it, I am well. Stuck in this dismal form, but I will live. Why on earth do you care?_

_ _

They shouldn’t, and it bothers her. She hasn’t had a cordial meeting with one of her kind since before their sire hatched; gods were not social creatures on principal. The last of her species that she remembers being anything close to friendly with had been her brother, the wandering Nightmare, and that was before he had split himself into three forms, to prevent himself from fading as easily as the rest of them. She had thought it a stupid decision, and her last memory was of the diminished dream manifestation of him running away from her light beams, hissing and spitting at her territoriality. She was sure he was laughing at her now, wherever he was. 

The Shade Lord huffs again, and presses their snout closer to her. Their skin- if it could even be called that- ripples and shifts like oil, radiating a deadly chill that her fur and aura just barely protect her against. It’s closer to touching dry ice than being assaulted by a chilled breeze, and burns her just the same when she tentatively rests her forelimbs on their shifting carapace. ** _War fought battle done Infection gone stopped. No need._ **

It was an unsettlingly simple answer to a not-so-simple problem. She curls her forelimbs under her fur, away from the stinging cold of the Shade Lord, and tries her best to glare at them. _ No need? Lord of Void, even with your father assuming a lesser form, that did nothing to reduce his power once he achieved his full growth. I will be just as much of a threat to your territory when I undergo metamorphosis as I was before I gained a physical body- nay, moreso. For I will have no need to drag myself back from being forgotten through dreams of my radiant light, nor will I have to twist the bodies of your children to do my bidding as your father the Pale Wyrm forced me to. _

She expects anger at her words. She expects violence, and for the jaws that she knows hide under the mask to split wide open and swallow her whole. But when she extends her burning mind out to the cold abyss of her enemy’s, all she gets is...reluctance?

No. Exhaustion.

** _I am not a king_ ** , they say, and it is the first coherent sentence that she has heard them say, even when listening to the churning whispers swimming on the edges of their mind. They push a litany of sights and sensations into her mind; Hallownest as they had seen it when they were still called Little Ghost, a tumult of pictures and feelings that she parses through with the expertise of shifting through hundreds of scattered dreams. The curiosity and longing that stains each memory surprises her a little, but not so much as the clarity and ease with which the thoughts are conveyed to her. The Pure Vessel had been easier to understand than the Shade Lord, soul-void halfling that they were, but whenever their thoughts had manifested into spoken word it was always accompanied by such an arsenal of regrets and anxieties that she hadn’t the will to do much more than poke at them to watch the way their shade hissed and writhed. It had hurt her to try to interact with directly, like catching an antennae in a patch of thorns. But while this interaction still stung at the edges of her consciousness, it was not unbearable, and the tangled knot of emotions she had gotten so used to evoking in her vessel was not present here. It was just the Void, pouting like a little grub over something that she had murdered for. ** _Just Ghost._ **

_ Just Ghost? _ She asks- scoffs, really, for that is no name for a god. _ The Wyrm did not name his creations. _

** _Not Wyyyrm. _ ** They think, very rapidly, a series of images of their father’s corpse- as it was rotting on Kingdom’s Edge, as a diminished husk reclining on their throne, as an unattainable light glowing bright against the Abyss- and just as quickly throw them away again. They had never known their sire as anything more than an unattainable figurehead, and they did not care about him. Instead, they fill her mind with images of greenery, the cold gleam of a needle pointed at them by a bug that looked so much like their siblings that it hurt. She felt, secondhand, the electric shiver of shock that had vibrated through them, the buzz of revelation as she called them ‘Little Ghost’. The pain of her needle striking home had not diminished her in their mind; they had been hatched in a world where they had to crawl out from under the broken husks of their clutchmates, such a minor inconvenience bothered them none. ** _Sisssssterrrrr._ **

_ Still not an acceptable name for a god, _ she grumbles, but it has no heart to it. She is shivering now, despite her fur, and the ends of her legs have grown numb with cold. She tucks them closer under her coat and tries not to let her exhaustion through their mental link. Darkness take her, she had not remembered how burdensome physical bodies could be. _ You cannot expect me to call you by that when you are in this form. _

** _No, _ ** they think, and warmth bubbles up from their mind even as they think of the colours and light of Hallownest, of a broken mask left behind. ** _But I not stay._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Radiance looks like one of those super-hairy fluffball caterpillars but with glowing eyes and three antennae. It's cute as fuck. She, queen of light and ruler of moths, righteously hates it.


	3. Unfortunate Family Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This next section wasn't supposed to be this long but then more and more people started showing their asses up so I had to write more bc I'm literally unstoppable when it comes to meticulously detailing everything. Someone pls help I'm dying
> 
> Just a fair warning, I'm still pretty new to the game and I don't really talk about it much other than with a few friends, so I'm pretty heavy on the headcanons here. I don't know what the 'normal' or 'accepted' lore theories are so I'm just kind of going apeshit off of my own interpretation of the game

It takes them a little longer to leave the Abyss. The Shade Lord cannot touch her for long without freezing her to death, and she does not need to touch their mind again to know that the dry warmth of her aura burns them. Instead, they set about creating her a sort of sling to ride in, crafted from the detritus around them with the help of their sibling’s shades. Before she knows it, they are pushing the sling towards her with one ropy tendril, their eerie white eyes surrounded by a ring of smaller, more cautious lights. It’s like a little, ragged cocoon made off of a broken mask and a material that she recognizes as the little vessel’s cloak when it fought her. She hadn’t realized that it crafted itself a cover from the bodies of its own siblings. She hadn’t realized they had true bodies at all, at least not until she wriggles herself close enough to see what her new transport system was made from. 

Some of the Pale King’s children had wings. She scoots her fat, clumsy little body into their dusty grey embrace, and tries not to shiver when she feels it rustle against her back. Even when piloting the husks of Hallownest’s inhabitants, she had not had a personal relationship with them. She thinks back to her tribe’s ways of honouring her dead, and comforts herself with knowing that she, at least, raised a civilization that knew respect. 

(At least, before they forgot about her and left her to die, alone and unwanted and the anger of her betrayal had burned away the ashes of her corpse into essence on the wind.)

The Shade Lord has no such qualms about using their hatchmate’s discarded bodies as a tool. She’s hardly wriggled herself around in her little carrier before they hook a claw around a pair of handles attached to the eyeholes of the mask, and begin to climb, their long forearms dragging their long, wormlike body out of the Abyss. Her carrier swings wildly in their claws, dizzying her despite her vivid memories of free flight, and she squeaks to herself and tucks her head under her forelegs to try to wait out the ride, nausea churning through her as they slither through the tunnels under the kingdom 

Only once the Shade Lord has stopped does she dare to peek her head out from her cocoon- and the aura of Void she pokes her antenna into nearly suffocates her immediately. The entrance to the Black Egg Temple looms ahead, darkness billowing out of it in clouds, Void dripping freely from the broken stone forming it. The Shade Lord, stops, already half-squeezed in, then lets out a soft breath and turns around to place her on the steps outside, abyssal sludge curling away from her as she settles. 

They wuffle at her again, almost as if telling her to stay put- as if she could go anywhere!- and slither their long body back into the temple, shifting until their tail has enough room to squeeze inside. She tucks her legs under herself and wonders, not for the first time, if they have any idea of what they’re doing- if the form they took was voluntary, or if it was a direct result of them being a child of the Wyrm, to look so like the Pale King did before he shifted into something more suitable for ruling. 

She gets her answer when the Shade Lord returns from the temple, a broken mask clutched in one vast hand, a nail wrapped in a familiar cloak in another. They look at the ruins of their belongings with such dismay that she could practically _ feel _their father’s consciousness churning beyond the vast bounds of the world, and set their nail gently down next to her, lifting the shards of their mask up to their face with their newly-freed talons. 

_ Useless. _ She tries to beam her mental voice to them, but she is very small and very tired and they do not feel particularly inclined to listen, so her tiny cry goes unheeded. _ You are not a creature of creation. Do not try to waste your energy- _

With a sickening _ shlorp, _ Void lines up the mask and squelches the fragments back together, creating a unified, seamless white front. Triumphant, the Shade Lord humms, the vibration of their body rattling her around like a ragdoll, before they curl up their body into a tight, concentrated orb of pure Void and stream back into their own mask, reforming their old body with a soft _ ‘pop!’ _ of energy and the clumsy _ thud _of someone hitting stone. 

The Radiance clicks her mandibles back together and sighs. 

The little vessel that killed her gingerly rises from the cobblestones, examining themselves carefully. From what she can see, there is no difference between the old body and the new (beyond maybe the sheen of a soft carapace, but she was hardly paying attention to what they looked like when she was fighting them in Godhome), but they still take a little bit of time to pat themselves over and make sure they’re all together before they pick up their nail again and sling on their cloak.

Exactly a heartbeat after their cloak settled, an excited black-and-red form burst into being with a hiss of red flame, flying circles around Little Ghost’s horns while shrieking like the massive, bug-eating monsters that hunted bugs at the edges of the world. The Radiance, who had not heard such screams since the very beginning of the world, could only watch in stunned horror as the spawn of her brother’s mortal form settled into Ghost’s waiting arms with a croon of delight, enveloping them in his dark, leathery wings.

And then his great red eyes turned on her, and he saw her, and stiffened, and she was on her feet and readying herself before he could even think to hiss, readying a shield before her to spare herself the worst of his flames. They did not burn her last they met, for though they claimed their separate kingdoms dream and nightmare could never truly be as divided as they wished to be, but they still stung like a vengefly and she was much more diminished than she was-

The fireball never came. Quick as a whisper, Ghost’s little hand clapped down on Grimmchild’s mouth, turning them away from Radiance so that their mouth was pressed to the spot where their mask met their shoulder, patting gently and with the ease of long practice. Grimmchild gurgled plaintively, giving his friend a betrayed look, but kept his mouth shut when Ghost eventually let him go, swarming up their side to rest between their horns and glare at her balefully like a creature born of, well… a nightmare.

_You have to be kidding me. You cannot possibly expect me to be able to handle these conditions!_ She tried to scold Ghost verbally, sure that the Lord of Shades would prefer it in their newly-physical form, but all she was able to produce was mangled words and squeaking. Come to think of it, she wasn’t even sure if they’d be able to understand her even if she could- for all she knew, the dialect she was accustomed to using could be ancient. The idea discomfited her nearly as much as seeing her twin brother did._ The Nightmare Heart is not to be dallied with- are you seriously going to tell me that you expect me to get along with this...this...facimale of family? That you think my sibling is a friend worthy of your trust? Answer me, Shade Lord!_

Little Ghost looked up from their charm set, gave Grimmchild a long, considering look, then shrugged and went back to sorting their things. Radiance was almost certain that the last time her brother had looked that smug was when he had stolen some of her worshipers and gotten them into wearing red eyeliner, a_ horrible _decision that had ended with the last respectable portions of his ruff shorn into shreds by her swords. Not that he seemed to care much. She was pretty sure that it had just aided him in his decision to style it like a hideous cape.

Ghost tucked the last of their belongings under their cloak, took out their map, and traced a path on it with one stubby arm, lingering on some destination that she couldn’t see. Grimmchild let out a raspy ‘_ mrrr _’ of delight, and, with a decisive nod, they buckled on their nail, tossed Grimmchild into the air, and scooped up her carrier to sling onto their back like some sort of pack.

_Where are we going?_ She demanded, squirming around to try to look over their shoulder. It was difficult- her legs were just barely long enough to peek out from her fur, hindering her movement- but when she rested her forelimbs on Ghost’s shoulder, the god’s aura no longer burned her. _I may be diminished in this form but I am still a goddess. Wherever we are headed, I demand it had adequate protection for three higher beings. I refuse to die for the second time this millennium just because your standards are lower than they should be._

Grimmchild hissed at her, but Ghost just looked at her, pulled out their map, and pointed to a destination marked with a red pin. The written words swam before her eyes, familiar but indecipherable; she had picked up scattered fragments of the language from the dreams of the bugs she had possessed, but she hadn’t learned it. 

_ I don’t know what that means, _she protested, and Ghost shrugged, hefted their nail, and started trotting along. Their movement jostled her, forcing her to cling tightly to her cloak, but it did not...upset her like being swung through the air did. Her very little brother shot off ahead with a rustle of leathery wings, spouting gouts of flame at the withered nodes of infection still lingering about the Crossroads. Some fireballs hit bubbles that hid bodies under their radius, and the smell that wafted up from the burning carapaces was truly hideous. 

(She does not feel regret. She will not feel regret. She did what she had to do, and these bugs abandoned her for the usurper. They deserved the burning, the upheaval, the deaths.)

(She tries not to think about how easy it would be for the two godlings she traveled with to kill her. The Void was the reaper of regret, the Nightmare Heart the scavenger of dying kingdoms, and she their fallen harbinger. How easy would it be for them to turn on her, to devour her whole? Her little sibling wouldn’t even remember it was her until after his current host died, and the Ghost...she had no idea what plans lingered in their consciousness, and she was too wary of their cold, tangled thoughts to try to decipher them.)

Ghost forged ahead as if they couldn’t smell the stench at all- and maybe they can’t, though she does remember faintly smelling the ripe sweetness of rot and dying bug when the Hollow Knight was too tired to keep her out of the forefront of their mind- and leaps up onto a chain leading up a well, scrambling surprisingly quickly for a bug with a burden. It jostled her, and she muffled a squeak of surprise in their cloak, pushing her face down as her abdomen clenched and roiled.

She forgot what having a stomach felt like. She hated it already.

The faint noise of someone mumbling grew louder as they ascended the chain, and, as soon as the vessel’s feet touched solid ground, she poked her head out again, hoping that seeing her surroundings would help ground her. It didn’t clear the spinning fog from her head, but it did distract her when she saw the source of the noise.

Ah. _That_ one. She had never successfully managed to infiltrate that bug’s head- though she also never really wanted to. Just skimming the surface of their mind felt like sinking into a mire of repetitive dullness and self-important clamor. One curious touch had been enough to send her fleeing, never to bother with them again.

Oh, and it saw them. Great.

“You!” barked the bug, scowling fiercely at them. “Come to bother me again, eh? I thought you’d died in the caverns, and good riddance. You and your pet demon are no match for the beasts below. Not like I, Zote the Mighty, who has slain many a mighty beast with my great nail, Life Ender. Leave the glory to the adults, grub! If you die to monsters then it will be all your fault, and I would not mourn you. Hmph!” Behind them, a beetle girl gasped in awe, and the annoying bug- Zote- seemed to swell to twice his size, preening under the attention.

Had the Radiance still been in power, she would have blasted this bug into ash for daring to talk to her like that, or at the very least break open their mind to see what had gone so horribly wrong in their head for them to dare to talk as such to a goddess. But the Lord of Shades did no such thing; instead, they merely tipped their head at Zote curiously, as if they didn’t understand his words, and continued on walking by. Grimmchild dove at Zote’s horns as they passed, knocking him over with an indignant shout, and the Radiance watched, disgusted, as he failed to right himself, his horns caught in the broken flagstones. 

His little admirer didn’t seem to notice. Her attention had turned entirely to Ghost- to _ her, _ the Radiance realized, with a jolt of surprise- and she let out a soft squeal of delight that made Grimmchild squawk in dismay and Ghost to pause and look back, fathomless dark eyes seeking out the new disruption.

“Oh! You found a grub in the ruins! Did you save her too, fierce knight?” The beetle girl flushed hard enough at her own words to bring a glow to her shell, but her eyes remained trained on the Radiance, forelimbs pressed to her cheeks to restrain a squeal. “Oh, she’s so cute! May I hold her? I-I mean, if you don’t mind.” Her delighted smile dropped, and she rubbed her foreclaws over each other, a nervous habit. “I’m not...not many bugs would let me.”

_Absolutely not,_ the Radiance nearly said, by reflex. She was a goddess of light, _the_ goddess of light. She was not a caterpillar to be cooed over by bugs barely out of their third molt. She was to be looked up to by these lesser beings as someone to be feared and respected, not passed around like a loaf of bread.

But...she was a caterpillar now, a goddess dethroned. And she was vaguely breadloaf-shaped. And no one had looked at her like that in a long, long time, even after she had woken up again and realized that she was so, so alone.

Ghost gave Radiance an assessing look, then carefully slipped the sling off their back and picked her up. Their hands were cold, eliciting an involuntary squeak from her, but she barely had any time to feel mad at herself about it before warm claws sunk into her fur and held her close.

“Oooh,” the beetle breathed, and awkwardly shuffled her around so that she could hold her and pet her at the same time. “Ohh, you’re so pretty! How could anyone leave you behind? You’re not like me at all, you-” she glanced over at the Shade Lord again, colour rushing back to her cheeks, and cut herself off, claw stilling. The Radiance squeaked grumpily, rising out of the warm haze the petting put her into, and she hurried to resume her stroking, carefully preening her fur back into place. “You’re so soft and cute, I don’t know how anyone would abandon you. Unless...they didn’t mean to do it at all.” She deflated a bit, then gently patted her head and handed her back to Ghost, turning positively scarlet when their fingers brushed her claws. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you...are you trying to find someone to look after her?” She fiddled with her claws again, averting her eyes. “I...I don’t mean to insult your skills, valiant knight, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a grub that’s looked like her before. And I don’t think Elderbug does, either.”

Ghost looked down at the Radiance, tilting her two and fro (she grumbled at them, but they paid her about as much mind as they did Grimmchild, who was now attempting to terrorize the lumeflies in the lantern), then nodded. They looked around, peering between the dwellings as if looking for someone, then pointed meaningfully at a bench nearby, draping the Radiance over their shoulders like a scarf (she considered biting them for the insult, felt the cold seep in under her feet, and decided against it). 

“A-are you looking for Elderbug?” The beetle girl’s voice seemed to be failing her, her confidence dwindling without a cute caterpillar to coo over, though Ghost took no notice of it. The Radiance snorted quietly at her and curled her forelimbs in their cloak, anchoring herself. She couldn’t see very well like this, but the pose made the strange clenching in her abdomen calm down, at least. “He’s...he’s sleeping. There was a commotion down below...I don’t know anything else, sorry. He told me not to go down and he seemed so frightened that I didn’t want to ask.”

She mumbled another apology at their blank stare, then fled, darting past Zote to a little dwelling not far from the entrance to the Crossroads. Ghost looked towards the well, then down at their hands, as if they could still see the blood of the Hollow Knight smearing them, void tainted with sunbursts of orange. It was...strange, to feel guilt radiate so strongly off of an aura that didn’t belong to her old jailer, and the Radiance unhooked her grip from the vessel’s cloak and wriggled her way back to her carrier to escape it, trying to quell a new squirming in her guts that had nothing to do with her reborn physicality.

A red glow ahead caught her eye before she was able to make much progress, stopping her in her tracks. There, perched precariously on a lumafly lantern, was Grimmchild- and his gaze was fixed longingly on a set of circus tents set up outside of Dirtmouth, distant singing and laughter that she had originally attributed to celebrating survivors carrying over on the breeze. 

There was no question who those tents belonged to. Even without the distinctive red flair of the fabric, even if her memories had been wiped upon her death, the Radiance would recognize her brother’s aura anywhere. The hum of his power thrummed distantly under her skin, like a second heartbeat, and as she focused intently on the rhythm the beat pulsed, she could feel how thickly his magic wove through the air, songs of protection guarding his subjects from the hostile lands around them. No longer did it call to her, their worlds and her power sundered, but that did not change the fact that he was here, and that they seemed to be _ headed straight for him. _

The red pin on the map made a lot more sense now. She wished it didn’t. If Grimm was to see her in this state, he would _ never _be able to let her forget it.

_“No!”_ she squealed, loud enough that the Grimmchild hissed at her and Zote paused in dusting himself off to stare. _“No, I refuse! I refuse to see Grimm again! Shade Lord Ghost, surely you must understand how heinous sibling rivalry can be! I have not seen my brother in an an age and a half and I do not wish for that to change. His mockery and contempt is not worth whatever you seek.” _

Ghost considered her, considered the Grimmchild above, looked to the tents, to the well leading down to Hallownest below, to the grumbling false knight polishing his useless shellwood nail then back again. Nothing happened, nothing new presented itself. They looked at her, and a tendril of their thoughts reached out to her with a whisper of confusion, but it faded against the brightness of her mind before it manifested fully, leaving her just as confused as to their intent as they must have felt with her reluctance.

Then they shrugged and started walking towards the tents. 

Grimmchild bolted off towards their home with a shriek of delight, but Radiance let out an equally-loud squeak of anger and dug her limbs into their cloak, trying to jab uselessly at them with her nubby little feet._ “No! Stop! I demand it!”_ Screeching got her nowhere and earned her nothing but strange looks, so she reached down and grabbed onto the end of their cloak with her mandibles, tugging uselessly. _“No, I don’t want to go! Cease! Desist with this useless behavior at once! Stop it!”_

All Ghost did was adjust the lay of their cape and carry on. The jolt of movement finally knocked her from her perch into her carrier, and her futile wails were muffled momentarily as she sought to right herself, angrily-squeaked, mangled curses fading to an upset mutter until she could hook her front legs over the side and stick her head out to scream again.

She was too late; they had already passed into the hallway of the main tent, eerie scarlet flames guttering The melancholy sound of an accordian ceased, the heavyset bug playing it eyeing her warily. The Grimmchild let out a raspy _ ‘mrrah _!’ of happiness and dove straight for their ruff, but the musician caught and pinned him before he could land, idly stroking a thumb over one diminutive horn when the godling tried to wiggle free.

“Mrmm. So you return.” the bug held the Grimmchild out with the ease of long practice. Ghost opened their arms and let them drop back into their grip, a raspy ‘nyah!’ of indignation sounding out as hot, leathery wings smacked against cold, soft Void. The Radiance nearly got a wingtip caught between her mandibles, and snapped her mouth shut before her baby brother’s new vessel got the idea to try to do it deliberately. “Master’s in his tent. He’ll want to see this.”

Ghost nodded at him and began to patter off towards a doorway, before pausing midstep, retreating from it slowly. The Radiance eyed them curiously, before her waving antennae caught on a thread of power, woven tight around the entrance to protect against intruding higher beings. She wasn’t particularly surprised by it- though her brother held no territory of his own in the physical realm, even he had his limits- but she _ was _surprised that Ghost seemed to be. Surely they had felt the push of his protecting spells even before they ascended?

Apparently not. Ghost planted their feet on the far edge of the invisible line and craned their head forward, peering almost anxiously into the tent. Grimmchild circled above their head and chirped a question, but still the newfledged god did nothing, teetering on the brink of the enchantment as if they had suddenly gotten cold (heh) feet.

The Radiance, who had never wanted to go anywhere near the circus in the first place, squeaked: _ “Are you going to go are are you going to just stand here and waste our time like a fool? I see you inherited your father’s spine, Wyrmblood!” _

Ghost startled, tipping their head to the side to look at her. It was not a dramatic movement- the Radiance was sure if she hadn’t been bundled against them, she would have missed it- but it was enough. One of their horns clipped a nearby dream sigil, and for the span of a heartbeat the small, masked entity that the Lord of Shades cloaked themselves as dissolved, blurring into a gnashing dark mess of thorns and tendrils and glowing white eyes. It was terrifying, and _right_ _there_**, **and the Radiance’s anger melted away into a familiar pang of terror, a loud squeak leaving her as she scrambled to get away from the lashing dark shape.

The moment ended. The visage of her ancient enemy faded back into the familiar outline of Little Ghost, who stared back at her with hollow, empty eyes that betrayed nothing of the power that dwelt under their shell. Grimmchild _ ‘mrrr-ed _ **’ **disapprovingly, and the echo of her squeal was left to echo around the tent, the sound leaping from flame to crackling flame instead of dying out like it should have.

“Brumm? Brumm, my friend, what is with all this commotion?” A familiar rasping voice sounded out from doorway, and, with a rustle of fabric, her brother’s current shell lifted the tent flap, peering out with a distinctly harried look that the Radiance knew, for a fact, was 100% on purpose. His aura flickered and danced with living fire, and the Radiance froze, hardly daring to breathe as the familiar feeling beat down on her fur. The Grimmchild let out a happy cackle and dove straight for his chest, and the Troupe Master blinked and opened up the span of his wings further, so that his progeny might cling to his chest and nuzzle up under his father’s ruff. “I could have sworn I felt- oh, hello my child.” Grimm stroked under the Grimmchild’s chin with one claw, the rusty rumble of their purrs filling the tent. He looked from them down to Ghost, and blinked again, slowly, a wry smile quirking his lips. “So the little shade ascends. My congratulations, child of Wyrm and Root. Long have the dreams of this land been drenched in light; a little shadow might be all that it takes for it to finally heal and lie fallow again. Though I will never know if we don’t complete the ritual, hmm?”

He bared his fangs in an easy smile, the friendliest gesture he could manage with a set of teeth literally catered to elicit nightmares. Ghost certainly had no problem with it; they bounced slightly in place and tilted their head to the side again, jostling her deeper into her carrier. Grimm purred softly at their antics, a low, subvocal rumble that vibrated along her antennae and left her head buzzing unpleasantly. “Even so...I could have sworn I heard a different child in here. A caterpillar, to be specific, though my sister’s tribe has been dead for quite some time now. Where on Earth…?”

She doesn’t even have the chance to try to teleport away (though she’s not attempted it yet in this form, and probably shouldn’t for the health of everyone around her). Ghost makes a quick, complicated little sign with one hand, then reaches around and slides her carrier off their back with a flourish, lifting her as high in the air as they could.

Aw, fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanons I think deviate from the norm: the void sibling's cloaks. Honestly these are probably supposed to be part of their wings or something, but whatever, it looks like clothes so I treat it like clothes, and since they seemingly crawled out of the abyss then I can only assume it came from the corpses of other dead siblings. I mean, it fits in theme with the story, so why the hell not?
> 
> Grimm's entire situation is kinda weird and not so clear-cut as Ghost's is so I'm just going off of my own interpretation that the Nightmare Heart, Grimm, and Nightmare King were all one main god at first, but they split themselves into three weaker forms to try to keep themselves from suffering a dangerous killing blow like what happened to the Radiance (bc if the Pale King can die a fuckoff-huge dragon-adjacent creature and return as a godbug then idk why one god can't separate themselves into their main components). The Nightmare Heart is the primal source of his power in its purest, most raw form, existing in all realms, the Nightmare King is his dream manifestation of himself, and Troupe Master Grimm is the physical body that the rest of them use to get places. Since he's weaker in power than other gods, being split three ways kinda made his physical body suffer from the elements and literal burnout, and so the cycle of dying and being reborn in a younger self came about so that the godly procession could continue. Unfortunately, this also fostered individuality in each new reincarnation, which is why physical Grimm is like a weird halfway between a god and a vessel; he and the Nightmare Heart are one, but he himself only remembers that through his own hand-me down memories. Shit's weird for him.


	4. Unfortunate Family Reunion Part Two: The Reckoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got unexpectedly grim, not in the least bc the bastard with that namesake wouldn't shut the fuck up. i had to split this in two bc of him, smh. grimm i have finals i cant do this. grimm im suffering

Glowing gold eyes meet red. She squirms, but Ghost’s cold little hands grip her with strength remarkable for their size, keeping her in the spotlight. She could do nothing but wriggle in their grasp, skin crawling as she awaited her brother’s judgement.

Grimm stares. His uncomfortably-large eyes widen, the fires of the Nightmare Heart glowing bright in his gaze, and for a brief moment, the Radiance wonders if she’s finally managed to render her sibling speechless.

And then he laughs.

It’s not a pleasant sound. Her sibling has always had a raucous, unpleasant voice, and now with the authority over the nightmare realm and the slow death of his current physical form, his rasping voice has gained a new harsh edge. Grimmkin and performers both poked their heads into their tent with a rustle of cloth, openly staring at their master, and then at her when her glow captured their attention. All she could do was curl her antennae away from her brother’s cackling and curl herself into a tight of a ball as possible, trying to hide her face in her fluff so that no one could see how embarrassed she was.

Ghost lowered her down and patted her head with one soft hand. All they managed to do was set her brother off into another set of hysterics at the sight of her being soothed by her ancient enemy, which didn’t exactly help matters.

“Oh,” gasped Grimm, wiping his eyes with a claw. “Oh, my friend, you’ve outdone yourself this time. In all my time sharing the gift of the Nightmare Heart’s sight, I had never thought that  _ this  _ specter could possibly be real. Out of all the things that could possibly happen, you bring me not my sister’s head as a trophy, nor my child consumed by flames, but a  _ caterpillar _ .” He reaches a claw out towards the Radiance, carapace crackling with heat that was at once familiar and  _ wrong,  _ and the Radiance curled herself up tighter and hissed, summoning a weak little dagger of light that she tossed directly at his face. A couple of the newer troupe members gasped, but Grimm just casually caught it between two claws and grinned, mouth stretching impossibly wide with mirth. Several others tipped their heads back like they were rolling their eyes, then wandered off back to practice, apparently used to the sight of Grimm dealing with small, angry children. “A very  _ fussy _ little caterpillar. Oh, my poor little powderfluff, are you hungry?” He clicked his throat in mock-dismay at her shriek of anger, then turned to the remaining watchers. “One of you, go fetch me some dried maggot. She’ll need it to keep her strength up- and to perhaps soothe that horrendous temper.”

Oh, that self-absorbed, overdramatic, classless little  _ shithead _ . She would not stand for this slander! She had torn her territory from the grips of that primordial abyss and had raised a peaceful,  _ civilized  _ tribe before the Pale Wyrm had stolen them from her! She had not crawled around scavenging on the detritus of lost kingdoms like some witless crawlid! She had been civilized! She had been kind! She had let her brother rule the Nightmare Realm in tandem with her instead of ripping his divinity from him like so many other gods out of the goodness of her heart, and she would  _ not _ let him forget that!

Invigorated by her indignity, she let out another great squeal of anger and wriggled hard in Ghost’s arms, dropping out of their newly-loosened grip. She hit the ground on her good side, rolled onto her feet with barely enough grace to save her wounded pride, and then inched her way forward with the intent to sink her mandibles into Grimm’s ankle. 

She didn’t manage it. Grimm just teleported a few feet away, laughing like a rusty chainsaw trying to gutter back to life, and Ghost snatched her back up before she could follow, cold little hands resuming their death grip upon her midriff. She squeaked and squealed out as many insults as she could manage, not caring that her physical screaming was nigh-incomprehensible to any listeners, and then subsided in a panting, trembling fit when she ran out of air, her exhaustion, stomachache, and the pain from her bruised side bringing frustrated tears to her eyes. 

A deep sigh sounded out from behind them, and the musician with the accordion stepped forward, setting his instrument aside. Ghost looked up to him, pleading, and, with an air of resignation, he took her up into his arms, the shock of heat from his fire-fed body soothing her. She curled her front feet into his ruff and let herself sink in against him, too tired to fight it. Even though his soul burned with her brother’s flame, tainted with his essence, it was still a much more welcoming aura than the Void’s icy gravitas. “Master. Caterpillars are vegetarian. You know this.”

“Mm? Oh drat, I genuinely forgot. It has been so long since we have encountered any moths willing to watch our performances, and longer still since I wore that guise myself.” Grimm snapped his fingers and studied her thoughtfully, though his shit-eating grin twitched a little wider everytime she cuddled a closer to his musician. Ghost looked between the two of them, then settled down and watched them as if they thought they could learn something about childcare from it. The Radiance sure hoped that they wouldn’t try to run her hideous cold claws through her fur like the troupe member was doing right now- it would be anything  _ but _ soothing. “Do you know if we have any vegetarian stores left over? Fresh and sugary would be preferable, though I myself have not indulged in physical food since my darling hatched.” 

Oh, parental affection, disgusting. She never understood her brother’s wish to  _ breed.  _ With a disgusted chirp, she buried her face deeper into the musician’s ruff, holding on a little tighter when he rumbled in thought. “We have some crystallized nectar and honeysuckle tea left still. Divine doesn’t much care for it.” The Nightmare Heart’s devotee gently smoothed out a clump of awry fluff on her right side, and the Radiance melted. Oh, that felt nice. Oh, that sounded nice too, better than she’d expect with a bellyache. She was having a hard time remembering why she was angry. “Some fresh tempura leaves, too. The mantis twins were using them for meat curing but there are many yet left clean. Few vegetarians walk among us.”

“Excellent!” Grimm clapped his hands together, startling a passing Grimmkin. “Brumm, you are a blessing to our troupe, that sounds perfect. We can dine in my tent, then, if you so wish to join us.” He ignored Brumm’s grunt of surprise and quiet decline and turned to Ghost, gaze softening from one of elation to something gentler. “That invitation applies to you as well, friend. You have visitors here that will want to see you, but now is not the time to make amends. Things are in a delicate state enough as is- were you to barge in now, you would make it worse, however delightful or sought-after your company may be. No, best to stay with us, at least for the moment.” He nodded gravely at Ghost’s questioning head tilt, then grasped one of their arms and lifted them easily to their feet. “Now! To deal with the little powderfluff, and her delightful divine tantrums. What a conundrum you have put me in, my love! Heavy lies the dreamer’s crown, and you have vacated it for a coat of down! Verily have I seen my kin laid low, for you to have taken this form instead of died with the rest of your kingdom. It seems not only Wyrms are capable of shedding their skins to become something new, hmm?”

Warm claws circled her belly and lifted her from Brumm’s arms, away from the comforting warmth of the fireplace directly into the raging heat of the flames. Once again her brother’s gaze bored into her, though not for very long before he turned away and ducked under the tentflap, barking out a revised order for food and tea at another passing Grimmkin. She wriggled uncomfortably in the crook of his arm, trying to touch his mind so that she might question his motives in full- but she was no longer ruler of the dreamer’s realm, and his thoughts yielded naught but fire and heartbeats and a strange, hissing voice before he pushed her out again with the ease of long practice. He wasn’t in the mood for mindmelding- not now, not for a good long while. He would listen, but she wasn’t allowed in.

_ Why _ **? ** She thought irritably at him, feeling oddly betrayed. _ Why close your thoughts to me? What purpose does this serve? _

The fires of his mind enveloped hers for a brief moment, flashing a quick series of images that didn’t leave her reeling like the Shade Lord did. Orange acid, eyes full of daylight, corpses and the howling detritus of despair that plagued the bones of every dying kingdom. The Nightmare Heart kept the dreams of the Troupe safe from the Old Light-_her_ light- but he would rather not risk it, lest they suffer it. Lest they suffer_ her._ **Ǫ̸̡̳͙͔̖͓̭̫̺͉̅̾͛͠h̴̭͇̱̤̩͈͂͋̃͋͌͝͝,̵̗͎͕̥̫̦̠͕̗̠͚͐͋̎͜͝ͅ ̴̨̢̢̳͙̙̥̰̍͑͗̊̅̃̓̀̍͠d̴̨̺̼͈͍̹̾͐̈́̂̾͝͠e̶̢̢̮͔͈̤̱̟̯͎͉͗͘͘͜͠ą̵̠͖̩̗̬͖͕̗̜̗̭͓̣̬̾͆̂̏̌́̇̂͘͝͝r̶̡̛͈̩̓̈́̈͋̒̆̈́͊̄̄͂̕̕ ̷̢̫̭̮̺͉̂̍̌̓͠s̶̨̨̗̜͇̟͈̮̟͂i̷͕̤͖̖̘̯̿̈̅̽̀͒̂̈́̎͘͝͝s̸̩̣͍̳͔̘̖̈́̍̓͒̆̇̏̓́͠t̶̡̧̨̧̞̞̣̩̦͍͊̇́̎̓̒̋̀̐͘͝e̴̞̼͖͍̫̻͎̬̦̘͚̤̣͈̼͊̓̑̒̕ȑ̵̨̗͙̮̩̜͎͂̾͆́̈̎̎̊̕.̴̧̡̛̬͕̟̻̲̗̯̤͛̃̓͊͘͝ ̸̨̫̹͉̱̦̭͕̔̀͌͗̒̉̚͠͝Ẏ̵̹̹͍̟̜̻̘̣̣̣͕̦̬̬͒̇̍̑̓̂̈́̏̅̑̕͘͠ȯ̵̬̖̃͐͌͋͐͋̒̕͠û̶̧̲̠̗̜̰̗͔̜͉͚̗̞̒͜ͅ ̷̢̢̪̥̦͈̰͐͂̅̈́̋͆́͌̈́͋̅͆͘͝k̵̼̱̠̲͓̟̩̣͔͔̍̈́̏n̴̘̄͋ǫ̴̧̺̣͇͔͖̰̬̗͓̥̽͑͆͊͐̃̽̑̀̎ͅw̸̨̨̘͔̣͕̺͖̠̖̯̆͑ ̸̨̛͙̯̌̄͌w̶̲̓̍̄̈́̎̍̓͋͊̾̉h̷͋̓̈́͆̆̂͜y̴͈̭̰̯͓̝̮̙̭̰̦̺̅̃̓̋́̕͝ͅ.̵̛̹̘͆̅̑̈͒̋̆̈́̑̈́̈̾̈ ̵̦̙̰͓̱̊͑̊͝**

Something inside of her went cold. Grimm was still amused with her- and he was  _ never  _ going to let her live this down- but there was a distinctly distrustful bite to his tone that she did not like in the least. She snapped her mandibles at his wrist and hissed, low so that the Shade Lord could not hear them.  _ I would never do that again and you know it, least not to your worshippers. I have no need and your bugs hardly provide a good host, with their dreams so full of flame.  _

**I̷̳̤͗f̴̬͗ ̷͉̃Ï̵̢͍ ̶̧̣̄c̸̨̪̾ơ̸̘̮͘ũ̵̯l̴̡d̶͓̟̓̽ ̷͈̂͠t̴̏̚ͅȑ̸̤̖̏u̶̩͊ş̴̋t̴͖̟͑ ̶̩͍̕͝y̶̰͍̒̊o̸̼͙͐̓u̴̻͎,̶̳̘̔ ̴̖̔͝R̷͐̌͜à̸̜d̴̺̀ĭ̶̺̝̒a̷̛̮͗n̷̝̒c̵̛̯͍͒e̶̙̼͐̎,̷̧̓̌ ̷̳͋̾Ỉ̴̯ ̴̹͍̾w̵̨͙̽o̴͓̲͑ů̶̳̅ḽ̶̈̓ḏ̶̐.̶̦̄͐ ̷͓̽̐B̸͖͉̅u̸̎͜ṫ̵̠ ̸̜͠ạ̴̦l̵̗͋a̵̛̲̲s̴̲̣̾̋,̵̭͉̊ ̴̩̃I̵̥͈ ̵̺͆c̷͖̋a̶̫̎͠n̸̦̕n̶͜͝ö̶̝́t̴̝͊̀.̷̩͉͒ ̵̞̾̈Y̶̡̍o̶͓͋u̷̬ͅ ̸̢̫͐ḧ̸͎̋ȧ̴̩͓v̷͖̎e̷͓̋ ̸͍̟͋f̶̥̾̎o̷̖͘r̴̺͖͗š̵̺á̵̮͚̿k̵̳̦͒e̵̪͉̍n̸̼̾ ̴̘̥y̷͎͠o̷̱͑u̵͍͕̎͠r̴̗̈́ͅ ̴͇͝ͅṭ̵͂̕r̷̻̯̈́͘u̶̳̙͂s̵̯̉͠t̶̪͍̄ ̵͔̓͐į̸̓̊n̴͓͈̓ ̴͇̈́m̴̪̼̿̈́ḙ̷̆,̷͎́ ̸͍͎̋͝p̶͊ͅr̴͖̈ȍ̶̫̓v̶̮̭͑e̴̢͙̍́n̴̝͖̿̾ ̶̹̮̂̌b̷̫̠̊y̷̯̲̚ ̵̨̃y̷̢̻͘ȍ̸͓͉̿ṵ̶́r̶̢̖̅ ̷͇̆͋a̷͇͛̂c̷̝͆t̷͉̋i̵̝̿o̵̤͇̓̆n̴̦͗̉s̴̯̅ ̴̧͈̈́a̵̡͖͊͊g̶͕͌͒a̴̻͇̍̉ḯ̶̧̈́ń̴͍s̴͎͔̾͘t̴͉͆ ̷̭̩̿̈́m̴͙ê̴̖͖͝ ̸̼͈̊i̸̡̟͒n̴̠̺͊̈́ ̷̛͚͖̅t̷̨̞̑͘ḧ̸͍e̵̩̿ ̵̳a̵̲g̴̛͎̥e̶̪̓̎s̴͖̔ ̵̰̉p̴̦͓̈́a̷͓͐s̵̲͗t̵̻̀͠ ̸͕̓ä̷̙́n̶͖̭͋d̸̙̈́ ̵͇͎̃̑ĭ̴̡͎n̶̤̬̄ ̷͉̐͝y̵̹̓͝o̸̝̊u̸̪̅r̸͕̰̀ ̵̮̞̑r̷̛͓̬e̴̦͑̾ç̷͆̓ͅe̶̤͑p̶̡̉́t̶̫͈͐̿i̸̳̰̓o̵̺̓̒ͅǹ̷̯ ̵̹̿͐ō̶̱͗f̶̯͊ ̷̬̓̑m̴͙̂y̸̪͆͠ ̴͙̓̔p̵͕̪͌͝r̶̐ͅę̵̓̚s̷͚͊̊ē̴̢͐ͅn̸̼̊c̴̝̐̋è̵̠͠,̶͉̮̽ ̵̻͂ã̸̱̤ǹ̴̊ͅd̸̨̼́ ̶̼̮̅͘Ḭ̴͗͘ͅ ̵̞̉c̴̗̣̓̽a̴̤͎̾̅ņ̶̐̅n̵̨̙̈́̋ơ̴̯t̷̺̂ ̴̤͗͊l̴̛̰̓ē̵̳ṉ̵͙͆̕ḑ̵̇ ̶͈̈m̵̰͆͆ỳ̵̭ ̴̝̳͋̂t̴͖̬̒ŗ̷̮u̴̺͂̂ṡ̶̡t̷̫͗ ̷̧̓ţ̷̓̈́ǒ̷̭͖ ̷͎̄a̵̝̥͒̍n̸͍̝̐̓y̷͇͋o̵͓̒n̸̼͜ę̵̰̓̽ ̴͍͋ọ̴̿t̵̮͉̎͌h̸̢͕͋̇ē̴͈̗ř̵̖͕ ̵̪͐ͅt̶̻̽h̷͈̝̐a̷̺̘̚ń̵̻ ̵̜̌m̸̯̀͐ý̴̰͒ ̴̦̆t̴͇͗ŗ̸̲̽͂ò̴̤ṵ̷̃͋p̵̘͠ė̴̬ ̷̥̻͊̄ä̵̠̓s̸̫͛ͅ ̷̼͌͋i̷̛͍̅s̷̯̬͝ ** “Lest of all,” he continued aloud, “To a caterpillar who cannot even tell the difference between a simple stomachache and hunger. You poor cranky little thing.” He made that infuriating clucking noise with his throatplates again and shook his head, setting her down on a cushion in front of a low table with a condescending head pat. She squawked with anger and lunged forward to try to bite him again, but severely underestimated her balance, tipping forward onto the table. The frustration she felt at Grimm’s resulting chuckle was insurmountable, moreso when she tried to scratch at his nice shiny table to spite him and found it childproofed. “Oh, have some patience, my darling. We are performers, not cooks. I’m sure my servants are wondering why I’ve called for a vegetarian meal, when I myself have not touched a vegetable since our hatching, and our little friend here hardly ever eats.”

He turned then to Ghost (who had sat down on a cushion right next to her with their legs carefully tucked under them) and inclined his head, pointing towards another cloth barrier on the other side of the tent. “If you so wish, feel free to sleep here. Ascending is exhausting work, as I recall, and I’ve hardly had to use my bed since my child learned how to sleep properly. It’s all yours if you need the rest, and it’s the least that I can do for our summoner.”

The Shade Lord looked over to the curtain, then back to the Radiance, and then finally to Grimm. They held his gaze for a long, unflinching moment, studying him, then opened their cape and spread it out, patting a charm clipped to it with their soft little paw. Curious despite herself, the Radiance leaned forward a little and saw that it had been fashioned in an imitation of the Grimmchild’s face, radiating the now-obnoxious heat of her brother’s fire.

Grimm smiled softly, and spread open his own cape, tattered wings gently curling away to bare his chest plates. Against them, the Grimmchild slumbered peacefully upside-down with his wings wrapped around himself, tail coiled tight around his father’s neck so that he would not fall. It was, the Radiance grudgingly admitted, a pretty cute sight to see. “Not right now, my friend. It’s hard enough to fall asleep, when you are so young and full of energy. Maybe you can nap together later, before the ritual is completed. This new complication throws a wrench in things, I’m afraid, though the show cannot be delayed for much longer.”

Ghost considered his words, then got to their feet and pulled back the barrier, revealing a small room littered with papers, fabric, and the various other detritus the troupe master collected during his travels. They left the curtain ajar, hopped up onto Grimm’s plush bed (hardly more than a nest piled with pillows, the Radiance noted with disdain, as if he really needed that much cushion were he to somehow miraculously fall from his perch), and soon fell asleep with their head tipped forward, empty eye sockets staring down into their lap as they leaned forward, like a creepy little doll awaiting activation.

Grimm chuckled at their antics and rewrapped his wings, resting his head on his hands. “Someday, I will teach them how to sleep properly, whether it be in this current form or when my child next takes up my mantle. For once, I doubt that I will outlast my parents...ah, but that’s enough of that for now. Our food is here.” A lesser Grimmkin with a platter zoomed into the tent, chittering nervously. Grimm took their tray from them before they could upset it with their hovering, sliding a mug and a platter of leaves over to the Radiance before taking up a glass of something that looked like wine but probably wasn’t. “You should eat. Don’t think I didn’t notice the way you kept curling up as if you had a bellyache! This mortal form requires sustenance beyond soul and essence, my dear sister, I hope you remember that.”

_I haven’t forgotten,_ she grumbled, but her mind was whirling, distracted by her scattered memories and the scent of the food before her._ I’m just not used to being so vulnerable to it, that’s all._

So she was hungry? It had been so long since she had last physically eaten that she could not remember the specifications of what it felt like as a physical sensation, not just a metaphorical one. But  _ oh,  _ that tea smelled delicious, warm and flowery-sweet, and the leaves before her were still crisp and fresh despite the Grimm Troupe’s tendency to torch nearly every food item they handled. She inched herself a little closer and pressed her forelimbs to the warm mug, trying to dip her mandibles in without wetting her fluff. 

She was right. The tea was delicious, and she drank deeply of it before moving onto the leaves, crunching through them with a voracity that surprised even herself. Grimm’s eyes crinkled up in amusement, watching her as she ate, and he allowed her a few moments of silence to gorge herself, sipping his ‘wine’. 

She didn’t slow down until she consumed more than half of her plate, and even then she only pushed it away so that she could drink more of her sweet tea. She had forgotten the simple pleasures of life alongside the discomforts, and it was with a great reluctance that she projected her thoughts outwards, where she knew that Grimm could hear her.  _ Alright, let’s get this over with. What do you wish to talk to me about? _

“Such enthusiasm. Is it simply too much for you to fathom that I am happy to see you, dear sister?” Grimm leaned back on his cushion and crossed one leg over the other, twirling the stem of his wineglass between two claws. “I have not seen you in millenia, after all. It has been so long -”

_ Cut the bullshit. You did not treat me like a sister, you treated me like a threat. Either tell it to me straight or banish me like I did you the last time you made a stupid decision.  _ Her front legs curled around the mug, taking solace in its warmth and the energy its contents had granted her. She was certainly feeling a lot calmer now, though her wounded pride was still throbbing. 

“Language,” hissed Grimm, smile dropping to something more guarded. The fires of his eyes flared bright, and he cast a long, meaningful glance to the sleeping figure of Ghost, the edges of his fangs glinting in the torchlight. “Or did you forget that the little one usurped your kingdom? They need no tool to access minds now, and I’d rather not foul them so quickly. Allow them what little innocence they still retain, for me if not for them. No one would believe me if I told them it was you who taught them to swear, and I’d rather not be the one blamed for it, especially with their siblings so near.”

She snorted at him and shook her head, antenna waving, though his plural use of ‘siblings’ unnerved her. Surely, her vessel was not still alive…? She had nearly chewed clean through them with her cleansing light, there should have been no chance of their survival. It was a child of the Wyrm, however, and she of all people knew that gods didn’t die easily.  _ Oh, please. As if they wouldn’t know. I spent near the entirety of my confinement screaming every insult at the Vessel that I could think of, and the Void is not a singular thing. It must have already learned every curse that I taught its clutchmate, if that idealistic creature hadn’t the sense to seal its mind from the others as it sealed its mind to me. _

“And that is the exact reason why I no longer trust you, Radiance.” Grimm rose, claws curling tight against his glass, before he set it aside and unfurled his wings. His words were cold, but his tone was weary; carefully, he uncoiled his son from his neck and strode over to place him next to the Shade Lord’s slumbering form, smiling briefly as the child let out a sleepy squeak of protest. When he turned back to her though, he pulled his wings tight against his body and stared her down as if he expected her to somehow remorph into her adult form and rain fire and desolation down upon them. “I have seen the extent of the Vessel’s wounds. She whom I called my sister in the ages past was a frightful thing, but the wars she wages were upon gods equal in power, and when her battles were won she was peaceful, and preached tranquility and pacifism to the bugs who she held in her thrall. Now, however, I gaze upon someone who has killed thousands of innocents in order to further her goals, someone who has tortured and has delighted in it, someone whose fire no longer warms, but burns.”

The Radiance felt as though someone had thrown her into cold water and then flung her into a fire, so intense was the shock and the fury that struck her.  _ Foolish nightshrieker! Have you not forgotten what the Pale Wyrm did to me? Have you not forgotten that I was betrayed, my physical form destroyed and my moths stolen from me?  _ Angrily, she wriggled her way up onto the table, taking care not to upset her mug.  _ You accuse me of crimes that you yourself profited on! Do not think I do not know what your new form grows on, wastelands scavenger! Do you take the traitorous Wyrm’s side, now that its spawn feed your own? How weak you have become! How pitiful! I am not only betrayed by my children, but by my own family as well! How low you have sunk,  _ _ brother! _

He dipped his head down to her level, staring at her like a predator before prey, and for a brief moment she felt her ancient bravado flee her as the Nightmare Heart gazed deep into her being, pulling all the unnamed terrors and worries she hid away to the forefront of her mind. And then the moment passed, Grimm’s great eyes flickering shut, and she was just a silly little caterpillar again, fussy and being chastised by her unusually-tired sibling. “No, Radiance. Do not mistake my distrust in you as support of the Pale King. He despised me, and what my coming would bring, and you of all people should know that the life of the bugs under other god’s care often mean little to me. But that does not mean that they are any less deserving of pity- a lesson that  _ you _ taught me yourself, I might add, and pity I have learned aplenty since your dear archenemy took form and focus. The Pale King’s plan was desperately foolish and cost the lives of many of his own hatchlings, and as a father and vessel- vessel user?- myself, I would find it very hard to take his side. Very hard indeed.” 

He leaned in closer, hot steam hissing out from between his teeth. “But see here, we are faced again with this dilemma, for though my eyes tell me that my reborn sibling sits before me, my memories scream out of the devastation that you wrought upon this kingdom, and the strange new hatred that burns within you. Do not forget, Radiance, that though the Pale King destroyed thousands of his brood in the abyss, it was you who slaughtered thousands more of his children in your desperation- thousands that you claimed to love. Take it from this  _ lowly scavenger-  _ before this rebirth, the two of you were equal in crimes, neither more justified than the other. You have been given a second chance that many others haven’t, a chance to atone from your crimes and lay to rest old wrongs with forgiveness- forgiveness, not fire. Will you return to the stern, yet caring sister that I once knew? Or will you remain a devastating, ravaging force of nature, haplessly striking down all who you thought spurned you, until someone else comes to consume you? I do not know, for I am not a Wyrm, and the gift of foresight is lost to me.” He leaned back, waving a claw idly about, before pausing to flash her a cheeky grin. “As you have so blithely reminded me, little one.”

This was a talk much too heavy for tea, and her brother’s cautious attitude was much too difficult to parse through for someone whose thoughts still churned with hunger. The Radiance glared down into the sweet amber liquid before her, and tried not to think about the bitter tide of shame welling up within her.  _ I understand now. Though you seem awfully hung up about that damnable Vessel, for one who had never met it before.  _ She paused her drinking for a moment, thinking back to her earlier misgivings about her warden’s supposed demise, and her blood turned to ice.  _ Wait. No… _

Grimm arched a brow at her, seemingly oblivious to her discomfort, and finished off the last of his ‘wine’ with an elegant twirl of his glass. “So you tell me that you cannot sense them? What a conundrum you have landed yourself in, then. And one so very unfortunate for my poor Troupe’s peace.”

He rose, and teleported over to her side of the table with an elegant sweep of his cloak. As he reformed, red flames flickered into life in the air around him; flames that shifted and blinked like eyes, flames that showed a mass of void and bandages and those accursed, familiar, damnable white horns in the places where their pupils should be. Two familiar dark eyes stared back at her through the scrying flames, sightless and empty, but alive. Indisputably still alive.

Grimm’s smug asshole smile made its sneaky return.  _ Oh,  _ how she hated him. 

“No, dear sister. The Hollow Knight still lives, and I know this because they are here in this very circus as we speak.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all angst aside radiance spent at least half her time w/hollow just teaching them to swear (accidentally and on purpose) and the other half singing bored meme songs when singing so if they every got a voice it would just be like this:
> 
> Hornet: we freed you and you've got the chance to speak now that everyone knows you're not a Pure Vessel. What say you?  
Hollow: fffffff...FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK shit FuuuuCk beer on walls hey now you're an all star BITCH  
Hornet: what the fuck.


	5. A Lesson on Resilience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am physically fucking incapable of writing short chapters, gods help me. Again, this was originally way longer, but then I started including more and more shit as I got into the groove of writing, Grimm refused to shut the fuck up, and I eventually had to just stop and be like 'alright dumbfuck this is an entire chapter already spare the readers the pain of long updates and just POST it already'
> 
> Note: 'nightshriekers' means bat. I figured since bats are essentially terrifying demons to bugs that they wouldn't have a silly little name like 'bat', so I decided to nickname them something that wouldn't be out of place in a dramatically scary DND campaign (according to what I've heard of dnd. i've never actually played it myself. that would involve actually having the free time to have irl friends ahahaha *sobs in bio major*)
> 
> NOTE: Grimm goes all eldritch text again in this chapter, so if you have trouble reading it I put it all in the end notes in normal characters

Ice cold dread chilled her, all the way down to the very tips of her claws. Beyond the now-familiar sting of betrayal, beyond the fear of facing her old warden, a new fear of the schism she had drawn between them arose. Grimm _ knew _of what the Hollow Knight had done, knew what it was capable of- and yet he had still let it into his territory, had given it care and shelter like it was some sort of guest of honour rather than a monstrosity bred to kill her. Surely, he had sensed her demise? Surely he had known what it had done? There was sympathy, and then there was allowing the blasted thing to interact with him and the ranks of his followers. Had he no fear of what it could do? Had he no anger for what it had done to her, distant though their paths had become? Had she really upset him that much? He had no reason to try to save it, apart from hubris and...empathy.

...She had torn it apart from the inside out, rotted its arm off and reshaped its mind and form to fit to her desires with little thought to pay heed to its agony, both mental and physical. Grimm was both a vessel and a user of a vessel. He had said as much. And though he was trying his best to not let his weakness show, it was clear that his current mortal form was tiring him, the fires sustaining him burning too hot for his current husk to bear for much longer. Even the most cruel gods would be hard-pressed not to empathize. 

Still, she was not feeling particularly kind, and in the absence of fear the anger that she felt at seeing the damned thing still breathing made it hard to think of empathy.

_ Why? _ She near-growled, turning to glare at him as hard as she could without letting her terror show. _ Why, why are you showing me this? Is it not clear that I want it dead? Is it not enough that it trapped me in a place without light for centuries, a place where I could feel myself slowly burning out, dying, forgotten? Why help it? What benefit are you getting from this, other than an excuse to torment me? _

Grimm tilted his head at her, giving her an aloof stare. “Why? Why not? Is it not enough, dear sister, to hear a bug crying for help and aid them out of a genuine desire to minimize what little suffering I can? Must I justify myself any further?” He paused, looking down at her, and a strange shadow crossed his face before he smirked and said, quite cooly, “I am the stranger to these lands, summoned by a pale shade of its king, and when the princess and protector calls for help, then it would be simply inconceivable for me to not come running. I am intruding on her territory, after all, and were our families not mutually benefiting off of each other then she would have no reason not to banish me. And besides, powerful, chained-up godlings bleeding to death practically on your doorstep is quite bad for business. So if you want a list of _ reasons, _dear sister, then you will see that I have plenty past the simple capacity to have a heart.”

The force of his words cowed her, resentment and something else bitterly unwanted crawling up the back of her throat. She clutched her mug tight for warmth, but the tea had gone lukewarm, and she found little comfort in chewing the handle when she clamped her mandibles around it.

She would not regret her actions. She would not be remorseful. She would not-

Gentle claws smoothed down her back, comfortingly warm, like being submersed in a hot spring or sunning her wings on the side of the massive wastewalker beasts that she used to drive away from the kingdom. She glanced back up at her brother, cautious of his anger, but the only thing that greeted her was his tired smile. He was angry at her. He would probably always be angry at her for this. The wrongs she had enacted- the lows she had sunk to, she reluctantly admitted- had bothered him more than he cared to admit. 

But despite everything, he still loved her.

“We cannot change the past, no matter how powerful or omnipotent or farsighted we are,” he told her quietly, his talons still brushing lightly through her ruff. “The only thing we can do is leave the ashes of our failures behind us, and burn our way towards a better future. Do not forget that, Radiance.”

She sighed, and let a little bit of the tension melt out of her body, stroked away by Grimm’s gentle claws. The bitter little ball of regrets was still wedged somewhere in her chest, but she could think past it, at the very least, and not do something that would probably drain her, like manifesting said ball of regrets into an orb of vengeful light to explode in his face.

_ Tell me that you at least didn’t indict it into your cult, _ she muttered to him, half to get him to stop telling her painfully mushy things and half to watch the horror bloom on his face at the thought of trying to wrest his will onto a godling. _ The last thing you need is a broken killing machine with a death wish wandering through your troupe. _

“Oh, stars no. I am too weak to try to coax a bit of my flame into their shade, even for healing. Their void would eat me alive, whether they wished for it or not.” He removed his claws from her fur, grasping his wrist with his other hand and curling it tight towards his chest as if he could shield the flames within. The mild horror within his voice faded, however, as he tipped his head back to look at the sleeping bodies of the Shade Lord and his child, turning into something more contemplative. “Perhaps, if there were any other new-hatched children, little ones with no territory or element to call their own..perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. I cannot see any out there still living, and it is useless to yearn for things that can never be.” 

He shook his head mournfully and took his seat again, picking up his wine glass to fiddle with it. “Fear not, sister, the Hollow Knight’s stay with my troupe is temporary. Besides, I doubt they’d wish to join my clan, even if I offered. With their father gone and their purpose void-” he stopped to chuckle at his own joke, his laughter the dry rasp of sandpaper over chitin- “they have dedicated themselves entirely to clinging to the last remnants of family they have left. Or, at least, I assume that was the case; they haven’t exactly had the chance to tell me otherwise.”

_ It is incapable of doing so. You reason with something that has no concept of self. _Not entirely true, but the gleams of personality that she had witnessed in her containment had been frustratingly alike to that of the Pale Wyrm, and so she made no comment on it. Stubbornness, anxiety, and an odd fear of expressing emotions did not, in her mind, count as a concept of self. And even that could have been a mirror of their father, for all she knew; the void was unfathomable to creatures born of light. 

Not, apparently, to creatures born of fire; either that, or Grimm had grown closer to the dark in his travels through nightmares, for he merely shook his head and pointed towards the slumbering godlings in his nest. “Not at all. The children of the king might have a terrifying tendency to not care for their well-being, but they are very much capable of having an idea as to what they wish to pursue. Even tasked by the king to destroy you, this little one still took their sweet time meandering about the kingdom collecting flames for my child. Entirely on their own time, despite it not counting towards their ultimate goal, and more than once they have walked away from our dance to chase some other task that caught their attention. You would do well to remember that, Radiance.”

The Radiance glowered at him, then continued to sip at her tea in silence. Grimm waited patiently for her to finish, then propped his chin up in his fist and frowned as she forsook her usual urge to continue the conversation in favor of drinking the rest of her beverage before it went completely cold.

“Are you really going to drink all of that yourself?” He asked, bemused, then raised his hands defensively when she looked up at him and let out a warning hum, her eyes glowing bright as she charged up a light bean. “Oh, don’t mind me! But the bathrooms are in the side tent to the right if you need them later.”

_ I didn’t ask, _ she hissed, reaching the end of her mug. The honey that had been used to sweeten the beverage formed a thick, flowery syrup at the bottom, and she inched up a bit to grab the rim with her middle legs so she could shove her whole face into the mug. May her own pride damn her later, it was _ delicious, _and she wasn’t about to let that shit go to waste if it killed her…again.

“Of course you didn’t,” Grimm said, in that patronizing tone of voice that was quickly becoming her least favorite voice of his, “But you are also not the god who has successfully toilet trained your own reincarnations for millennia. Trust me, my dear, I know the limits of a grub your size very well by now, and unless you’re storing all that moisture in your fur somehow, you’re going to want to heed my warning one way or the other.”

_ Oh, fuck you, _ she spat, merely to see the way his lamplike red eyes narrowed in disapproval. Honey dripped from her ruff, gluing long strands of fluff together, then smearing all over her forelegs when she tried to groom it off. _ I don’t want to hear about your centuries of experience with grubcare. Literally no one asked, brother._

_ _

“_ Really _ now? Because I think that you would benefit from the experience. It’s quite humbling, seeing yourself so small, so vulnerable.” He paid no heed to her shrill squeak of anger, striding over to pick her up from the ruins of her meal. He was much more capable at holding her steady than the Shade Lord, and her wriggling did nothing but tire her out as he wedged her tight to his side and cleaned her fur with a burst of flame that did not burn her. It was terrifyingly similar to the tactics that she used to employ when they first hatched and he kept getting the blood of the nightshriekers he preyed upon all over his ruff, but she couldn’t twist about to see if he was exacting his revenge on her with her face smushed against scaly chest plates. “Of course, this might be a wonderful opportunity for you to learn to do so, with you severed from the dream realm. What say you, sister? Care to join me in my temporary mortality?”

_ I’d rather be drowned in the Void Sea than be stuck in this body with you! _Her wails were muffled, but her mental voice was still piercing, screeching out into the ether with all the might she had left. Grimm just chuckled at her, desensitized to her cries, but she felt something stir itself out of the liquid darkness that comprised her old element, a shifting under the veil that separated the dream realm from the waking world.

“Then so be it.” And then Grimm deposited her into a nest that brought her directly into contact _ with _that something, cold void shivering up her flank as the bed dipped her directly into the side of the Shade Lord. They did not stir, not even when Grimm gently laid them down next to her, but she felt the tendrils of their thoughts pull at her mind nonetheless.

** _‘…?’_ **

“Rest now, both of you.” Grimm patted her on the head, distracting her from the tug of the Shade Lord’s inquiry, then ran a hand between their horns. Their mind settled, soothed by the heat of his touch, not stirring even when he gently tipped them back so that they lay in a position that would presumably not strain their (nearly nonexistent) neck. Grimmchild chirped sleepily and flipped over onto his side, trapping them both under his developing wings. “We can deal with a family reunion later. For now, though, gather your strength. You need it.”

_ You can’t just tell me that before I’m supposedly about to fall asleep, I’d get nightmares. _ She complains only for the show of it; she knows full well that her dreams will not be gentle to her, even as she tries to settle into a more comfortable position. With her mastery over the dream realm gone, there will be no light to soothe her as she rests; only the shadows of the Void, or the flames of her brother’s ever-beating heart. Still, the familiar tug of exhaustion pulls heavy on her limbs- she is mortal now, and far too weak to resist it. _ Keep your claws out of my mind, sibling. _

His chuckle rasped on the edges of her hearing, both a comfort and an irritant. “I’ll try, sister. But I make no promises.” 

* * *

Gods did not dream like normal bugs.

Even with her rule over the dream realm ousted, she was still a god, and no mere nightmares plagued her sleep. Neither did the void try to touch her; when she opened her eyes into the comfortable embrace of her old realm, the shadows writhed thicker, but even they lay sleeping. The Shade Lord apparently had not yet learned how to exert their influence over the spirit realm yet. 

But gods did not dream like normal bugs did, and when they did not fill their minds with sleeping visions of what their future kingdoms may be, they delved deep within their memories, reminisced on the past; made their nests within it, even, when the physical realm abandoned them. So when the Radiance awoke within her dream and flipped herself onto her feet to find herself in the throne room of the Pale King (a place that she herself had never seen), she knew that she was not part of a dream, nor a nightmare, but a memory.

She turned her head to gaze upon the face of her enemy, but the doors of the throne room slammed open, and Grimm strode inside; Grimm, as furious and unhinged as she’d ever seen him, with the flames of his anger licking across the tips of his flickering cape. Palace retainers quavered and fell before his fury, their frames trembling as they bowed low to the intruding god, but his vengeful red eyes were affixed only to the monarch on the throne.

** _“̷͚̃P̷̫͆a̷̯̋l̶̞̈e̷̝͐ ̴̦͘K̷͙̊i̶̧͋n̶͉g̷͘ͅ!̷̱̈”̷̝_ ** he roared- howled, really, his eerie, crackling voice echoing off the walls until it sounded like the very palace itself screamed its misery through a thousand broken throats. Fire roared around him, boiling the crisp, cold air, wreathing him so that he looked more like his dream self than his vessel. ** _“̴͈̾Ŵ̶̲h̶̤̏ȃ̵͓t̶̘͋ ̶̥̋ẖ̴̓a̷͚͆v̷͚͌e̵̢̋ ̷͔̌y̶̖̚o̷̠͋u̴̖̔ ̶̟̇d̸̹̑ô̴̹n̶̡̂e̵͕̋?̵̡͘!̸͂͜”̸͖́ ̷͍̔_ **

Slowly, the Pale Wyrm rose from his throne, the impenetrable glare of soul wreathing his form diminishing as the heat of her brother’s flames burned the air around them. Though his gaze was proud and his head lifted haughtily, he looked like utter shit; there was a tired slump to his shoulders, his normally-pristine robes dirty and frayed around the edges. He had been in mourning- _ was _ still mourning, the Radiance realized, her stomach giving a funny little flip. Her first reaction was to gloat over her enemy’s suffering _ (and she was, she was! _) but years alone with the Vessel’s thoughts had seemingly conditioned her to think of the blasted king as someone to look up to, someone to impress. She could almost feel their pain echoing through her mind, a hollow, twisting ache that underscored the gleaming glow of her success. “Nightmare King, I urge you to watch yourself. Your presence is already unwelcome here- no need to make the situation worse.” 

“You claim that my arrival is unwelcome and yet _ you _ take no responsibility for the sins that your weakness unleashed upon your kingdom.” Grimm’s hiss was the sound of air rushing from punctured lungs, the sound of flesh sizzling in a fire, his teeth a mess of needles protruding from his jaws as he snarled. He was a bug’s worst nightmare walking, and the Radiance saw many of the watching servants quiver and faint dead away as his wings fanned out to their full extent, casting the silhouette of a nightshrieker upon the pristine marble floor. The shadow flickered and danced like a demon in the light of his flames, a terrible display that made him seem much, much bigger than he already was when he swept close to the throne, glowering down at the god resting upon it. “Had you the courage to kill her outright, your kingdom would have lasted far longer than it already has. But instead you played the pandering game, and now you have damned yourself and every one of your works for nothing. ** _And you know it.”_ **

She blinked. Grimm’s memory didn’t fade. The ringing of his voice in her ears didn’t stop.

He had been angry for her. He_ had _ cared. He did.

And that made all the things that she had said to him in the tent hurt like a bitch.

The Pale King stiffened, already-unfathomable expression growing colder, harder. “I did what I had to, I did what should be expected as King and God and defender of my people. My Pure Vessel has locked the Old Light away forever, and the infection has been stopped. Your kin is dead, Nightmare King, choked out by my vessel’s purity, and nothing you can do will change that.”

“Not pure enough, for even now my sister stirs.” Grimm leaned closer, exhaling a steady stream of smoke int the Pale King’s masklike face. He did not look away from Grimm for one second, but he betrayed his emotions with a flick of his tail, a short, violent twitch of anger or shock. “I can sense her, on the edges of my thoughts. I can hear her screaming in her cage, can smell her burning on the back of my tongue. No, Pale _ King, _my sister is not dead, and even now her voice still whispers into the minds of the bugs you hold sway over. She is alive, and you have dealt your full hand. The instrument of your kingdom’s demise was of your own making, all along.”

“Impossible,” the Wyrm spat, and oh, now he was mad, now he was in denial, his small frame shaking as he swarmed back up his throne, a corona of spirit daggers circling his head as he stared down Grimm. She’d almost feel pity for him, if it weren’t for the arrogance that he still wore in the cock of his head and the flare of his wings. “My Vessel was pure. The Dreamers are sleeping, the Black Egg has been sealed. The infection stopped. It has been contained, _ she _ has been contained, and I will not let a fearmongering _ fool _ who juggles fireballs for a living tell me otherwise!”

Grimm went still, and when he did, his voice went soft. The Radiance felt a chill creep up her spine, despite her knowing that there was no way for him to turn on her. Even after centuries, Grimm’s true anger was a frightful thing. “Not even when that fearmongering fool is the Old Light’s sibling, in realm as well as body? Not even when the fool’s _ element _is knowing when it is a kingdom’s time to die?”

“You give me no other reason why I should listen to you,” The Pale King snarled, but his dark eyes were full of fear, and uncertainty was starting to bleed into his voice. She didn’t need to be close to them to know what was going on; as usual, Grimm had seen all the worries that the Pale King held and dredged them up to the surface, and now he was forced to confront them. Very little escaped the eyes of the Nightmare Heart. “The statistics were sound. The Vessel was free of mind, of voice, of will and emotion. It held no weakness that would cripple it so.” The Pale King shook his head violently- less a statement of denial, closer to the jerking movement of a predator snapping the neck of its prey, as if he still thought himself a great wyrm who could handle all his problems as such. “I have seen nothing but darkness in all of the other futures. I’m telling you, Troupe Master, there was no other way.”

“Oh, you poor fool.” Grimm’s whisper was the sound of ashes kissing dead, scorched ground. He shook his head, slowly; not the sharp movement of the king before him, but a pitiful dismissal. “Your statistics lied. You know it, deep in your heart; can you not feel the pain of your child? Of all your children? Long have you shut them out, to listen to the cries of those who called you creator, but I can see how heavily your loss weighs on you. Even when repressed by the purest logic, the heart knows, and remembers. They claw at you now, the little shadows, little pieces of yourself lost to the abyss. Pieces of yourself you tried to forget. But you loved one of them dearly, didn’t you? A tiny little thing they were when they came to you, obedient and empty and perfect in your eyes. A perfect vessel, a solution to the problem that you created, that plagued you and the bugs that you were so proud of. But you didn’t expect to love them, didn’t you? No, that came later. Later, when they began to succeed where you couldn’t, when they looked you in the eyes and you saw yourself in their face, their mother in their eyes and their stature. You suspected it then, and your own weakness was like a brand of failure striking your heart. You knew it. You knew it then, and you tried to deny it. But you persisted, priming them to pure, perfect form, because by that time you had already gone so far down your damnable path that there was no turning back. Because turning back would have made all those little broken bodies in the abyss worth nothing. Because it would have made all their terror and pain and suffering meaningless. Because stopping and loving the only child you had left would have made your guilt choke you. _ Because turning back would have been admitting that you were wrong.” _

Dead silence reigned in the court, punctuated only by the soft crackling of Grimm’s flames. The Pale King was rigid, trembling, his gossamer wings shaking like leaves, on his back, but still he did not back down. He never did. He never would.

“I gave these bugs life and I gave them my everything for that. There is no cost too great to buy them their freedom.” The Pale King’s voice was choked, a strangled hiss rather than the soft, sighing whisper he was known for. He sounded almost mad, as if he was trying to convince himself that was the case. “They still dream free. The Hollow Knight-”

“-Did not fail because they weren’t hollow. They failed because they were too much like you.” Grimm tipped his head, burning scarlet eyes narrowing. “They loved their kingdom so deeply that it destroyed them, as your love for it did to you, though for them loving their kingdom was synchronous for loving you. And _ oh, _ Pale King, how they loved you.” He leaned back and sighed heavily, his breath leaving him in a cloud of harmless steam. Weariness dragged at him now, a sorrow that stretched fathoms deep. “Born of god and abyss, soul and void, but only one of two can kill my sister true. Cursing them with dark does not erase the fact that they were your child, you shortsighted fool.”

He straightened back up, going rigid for a second before closing his eyes, looking away from the Wyrm’s stricken face. The fires around him died down to smoke and steam, right as the distant, frantic sound of tapping feat broke through the silence- the sound of a messenger running, flat-out, towards the throne room.

The King looked to the door. Everyone looked to the door. Except for Grimm, who took a step to the side and gave the Pale King a look of such tired pity that the Radiance’s chest ached. “Wyrm, please understand. Despite all of this… I am sorry.”

The doors burst open. A harried-looking bug, almost run ragged, charged into the room waving a letter over her head. A letter splattered with a familiar orange fluid. A letter that she remembered seeing through the eyes of the first bug that her consciousness had slammed into, right before her brilliance blinded them for the rest of their days.

“My king, my king! The infection has come again! No bugs are safe!” She collapsed, panting, onto the floor of the throne room. Her shaking slid the spider silk from her grasp, and the letter fluttered to the floor, jagged blocks of text smearing under the acid.

There was no mistaking what it was. Cries of terror sounded out from all around them; but nothing matched the slow spread of horror across the king’s face, sheer shock giving way to a pain so deep and profound that the Radiance had to look away, lest his agony blind her.

_Let me go,_ she whispered to the ether, and let the essence of the memory disperse into the air around her._ Let me free. I cannot watch any longer._

The memory dissolved into red dream motes. The cool silvers and porcelain of the White Palace melted away into deep, dark red, the screams of the servants warping into the pulse of the Nightmare’s dread heart. Across from her, the lesser dream form of her brother crouched over a tiny dark thing held tight in his claws, the flickering flames of the Nightmare Heart casting his form into shadow.

“Why did you show me that?” the Radiance croaked, shaken. The pulse of the Nightmare seemed too intimate somehow, too close to her brother’s secrets; a byproduct, perhaps, of direct proximity his heart. She was closest to interacting with her brother as he was in the days of their youth here, where the primal source of his power lurked, but instead of offering safety all it did was make her feel like an outsider. The second half of this realm was not hers anymore. “To show me that the Pale King had a heart somewhere in his cold chest? I did not need you to show me your memories to tell me that. It does not change the fact that he tried to kill me.”

The Nightmare King’s head slowly tipped up, his eyes trailing from the little dark thing in his claws to her. She was still a caterpillar in here, her powerful dream form torn from her from her rebirth, and his gaze upon her reminded her intimately of how very, very small she was.

**N̵̨͍͍͔̪̣͔̱̼̹͎̺̆͛̉̌̎̏̚ơ̸̧̼̩͇̻̝͙̮͈̼̾̃͆͊́͝ͅ.̵̢͊̋̇͋̂̈́ ** Grimm hissed his words- on the breath in, on the breath out. The beat of the Nightmare Heart stuttered for one quick second, and then resumed its usual pace. Grimm slowly turned back to the thing in his hands, his claws curling tight over it. **N̷o̵.I̴ ̶d̸i̷d̴ ̴n̷o̵t̴ ̵d̴o̴ ̸i̷t̸ ̷t̶o̴ ̷t̶e̶a̷c̶h̷ ̷y̸o̵u̷ ̶a̵ ̶l̶e̴s̵s̴o̵n̵.. ̸M̸e̴r̷e̵l̵y̸ ̵t̶o̷ ̸r̵e̴m̶i̷n̷d̶ ̸y̸o̶u̸.A̶n̸d̵ ̷m̴e̷.̵.̷T̸o̵ ̵t̸e̴a̶c̶h̷ ̵m̵e̸ ̸a̵g̷a̷i̶n̸,̶ ̸t̴o̸ ̴c̷o̷v̵e̵t̴ ̸t̴h̵e̷ ̴t̶h̵i̴n̷g̶s̶ ̷t̶h̸a̸t̴ ̶I̴ ̶c̴a̶n̴ ̷l̴o̸s̷e̸ ̵b̵e̶f̴o̷r̵e̸ ̴t̷h̴e̸y̸ ̴a̷r̸e̵ ̷g̸o̴n̶e̴ ̵f̵o̸r̴e̷v̶e̴r̵.̷.̴T̸o̴ ̵t̷e̶a̷c̸h̷ ̶u̵s̴ ̷a̶g̶a̷i̸n̴,̸ ̵a̵s̸ ̵w̵e̶ ̴s̸o̶ ̴v̵e̶r̷y̶ ̵o̶f̵t̴e̸n̴ ̵d̸o̵ ̶w̵h̶e̷n̶ ̶w̷e̴ ̴a̶r̷e̵ ̵g̷o̶d̶s̵ ̷a̵n̴d̶ ̶i̵m̶m̴o̸r̴t̶a̶l̸s̶ ̵a̶n̴d̷ ̶t̷h̸e̸ ̴v̴e̵r̷y̸ ̴w̴o̸r̵l̴d̸s̸ ̴s̸t̸r̴e̶t̸c̷h̴e̶s̸ ̷o̵n̵ ̶b̶e̵f̷o̸r̶e̴ ̶u̵s̸ ̶t̴o̴ ̴m̴o̶u̶l̴d̸ ̵t̸o̸ ̸o̵u̷r̸ ̵h̵e̴a̷r̶t̷’̶s̴ ̷c̷o̷n̵t̷e̴n̸t̶.̶ ** He huffed a breath, not quite a laugh. The little thing in his hands quivered, then settled again, like a fussy little hatchling that needed soothing. **Ṱ̵̟̒͝o̶̩͓̚ ̶̦̂͒r̸̹͑̈ë̵̪̕m̶͈̓̍ǐ̶̢̘̽ǹ̷͇͌d̷̠́ ̷̱̂͆m̸̟͂ë̴̞̬́͑ ̶̬͚̈́̔t̴̼͑h̴̤̮̿͝a̴̩̍t̸̘̖͘ ̶̳͓̅f̷̩̠̉a̴̰̅m̸̦̃͆i̴̻͑̿l̴̞̟̈͆ÿ̸̃ͅ ̴̗̕i̶̹s̷̖̾͑ ̵͕̲̊͝n̴̛̥̔ŏ̴̧t̸̻͑ ̵̣̣̐f̵̲̹͊o̵̭̥͆r̶͍̽e̴̞v̴̰͑͘ë̵́̕ͅr̷͔̆.̶͙̳̒ ̶̼̻̍͂N̵̯͒̐o̸̙͊̎t̴͎̳͒ ̵̪̱̉̕t̶͉̹̒h̷͚͇͠e̷̞m̶̦͈̅.̶̘̳͌͐ ̷̪͂͗͜N̶̆ͅo̵̼̭͐̊t̵̫̿̑ ̶͉͎̾̿u̸̯͛s̵͇͌.̷͇̝͆ ̷̰͝N̷̡̬͌o̴̜̝̽͗ṭ̸̈́ ̷̡̋͛͜t̴̞̂ḩ̴̃ẽ̴̤ͅ ̷̗̝̄t̴̖̯̽͒r̴͉͗͠o̸̝̐ù̵̯̈́p̸̻̹̍̅e̸̪̍,̸̺͒ ̴̡̓t̷̲͇͌h̶̥̭̅̏o̴̫̓ȕ̵͓g̵͚͘h̷̟͊ ̶̜̬̾m̷̨͒̇y̵̲͖̌̑ ̶̺͌f̴̖̒l̸̄͊ͅa̸̩͝m̸̦̬͠e̵̖̎͜ṣ̴̄͑ ̷̓͋ͅe̴̬̟͝m̸͓̭̀p̴̫͔̀ẗ̵̜̜́i̸̲̺̚e̸̝̼̽d̴̯͉̏̉ ̸̦̉͜t̸̞̳͐h̴͖͝͝e̷̲̲͑m̴̮̜̏ ̴̮͛̎o̶̢̹f̶̼̝̌̉ ̶̬͗̕m̸̬̓͊͜o̷͚͝r̴̠̂ṱ̴̈ȧ̷̹̔ḽ̴͕̀̚i̶̩̳̍t̶̰̘̐͆y̶̥̓.̵͙͝ ̵̨̚E̷͔̟̎v̴̬̀̕e̷̻̎̍r̷̥͙̓̑y̵̖̔t̸̡̛̚h̵͚̆͛i̵̠͋n̶͚̋g̷̤̓͑ ̸͎ͅl̷͕̋e̶̤̟̿̐ȁ̵͍͗v̷̠͊e̴͈̔̊s̸̖̊.̴̭̣̾ ̸̰̔Ḛ̷͈͊v̸̥̕e̵̗̍r̵̢̤̈̊y̷̩̫̐t̸̖͑h̸̻͘į̸͉̏n̸͇̾͆͜g̸̺͖͒ ̸̜͚̑d̸̮̽i̷͉̓ę̵̜͘s̸̑͜͝.̷̺̰̈ ̵̠̠͋E̷̖̅v̸̛̘͘e̵͚͗͘ñ̵̖̮̔ ̷̠̋̃ṵ̵̘̃͒s̵̠̺͑.̷̧̑ ̸̃̓͜A̵̧͝l̶̩̟̾l̶̡̾ ̵̨̋o̸̙̝̒̄f̸̭͈̐̈́ ̶̳̑u̷̞͌͝s̸͍͌.̵͎̹̔͆ ̸̮̿́**

He stroked the darkness again with one talon. It seemed familiar somehow, but she couldn’t place in what way. Grimm hunched over it like it was a dying ember he was trying to prevent from flickering out, staring at it like looking away once would let it fade away before he could save it**. ̶̼̂̚B̷̔̆͜l̷̰̂ỏ̴̤̼ǒ̶͚ḓ̴̕ ̴̢́̐i̴̠͈͆s̷̨͛ ̷͌ͅẗ̷͉́h̵̙̪̔ī̵̫͉c̵̳̈́͆ķ̷͔̑e̶͉̎r̶̡̓ ̸̟̐t̴̲̿̊h̴̙̕͠a̴̭̤̓̅n̸̤̆̓ ̷̜͚̃w̷͚̏͂a̶̮̲̿̒t̷̨̮̅e̸̫͒͜͝r̵̠͛,̷̱̉̏ ̸͖̉f̶͚̰̒l̶͈̣̈́a̶͙̗͑m̵̰͌e̴͉͊̑s̶͕͉͊ ̴̩̆͐d̷͔͆a̵͎̱̚n̶̯͈̈́̀c̷͙͈̐ë̸̞̺́ ̶̻̚͠f̵͚͇͆a̵̗͉̓̈́s̴̲͍̍t̷͇̓e̴̖͌̈́r̶͎̄͗ ̶͉͓͑t̶̲̝̓̍h̵̹͆ḁ̴̃n̶̙̐͜ ̷̖̯͌ḁ̸̑ì̴̻̟r̴̰̃̀.̶̣̳̿ ̷͉̀͂B̷̨̊ữ̸͇ṱ̵͍́ ̷̖̀̇a̷͍͕͐l̶̟̏̀l̶̛̜̳ ̸̪̃̕o̶̡̥͑͗f̴̟͌͝ ̶͉̓i̴̮̔͐͜t̶͖̿̈ ̴̗͑̏c̷̣̽r̸̮̭͝u̸̞͖̇m̴͉̦̐̍b̶̏͜l̷͙̂e̶̮͈̿s̵̲̈́ ̷̠͈̀ṭ̷̮́͆o̴͚̊ ̴̗͕̌a̷̩̓ͅs̴̠̿̔h̸͔͗e̵̯̲̒š̴͖͇ ̶̳͋i̵̬͉n̷̥̂͌ ̴̰͐t̶̫̼͛̏ḣ̸̢͂ę̶̣̿ ̸̰̄͘e̷̪͗n̵͖̆ͅd̴̗̻͆.̷͙̕**

Her breath hitched, and she hated it hated it_ hated it _**_hated it._** This was Grimm. This was her brother. He was always the weird one out, the god with no territory, the god who embraced his fears instead of vanquishing them, the god who chose mortality over immortality even when others strove to never let theirs go. Death and life and rebirth, fear and fire instead of kind warmth and light. She should pay no heed to his dramatics, and yet...“You’re trying to scare me.”

He did not look away from his clawful of shadow, only dipped his head lower over his burden. **O̴̊͜n̶̲͠l̴͉͠ỹ̶͈ ̶̮̚i̵̘͆f̵̹̂ ̶̛̱c̷͍̋e̶͖͑a̷̭̍š̸͖i̴̱̓ṉ̵̽g̸͓̈́ ̵̱̑ţ̵̋o̸͎̕ ̷̮͘ḙ̷̓x̶̤͆i̶̞ṡ̸̘t̵̨͋ ̴̘͘š̷̫c̶̲͝a̷̠͠r̸̻̆e̴̟̐s̵̡̚ ̸̖̃y̶̙̏o̴̼̐u̵̹͌,̶͔̽ ̸̞͛s̵̺̈́ị̴̍s̴̬͌t̵̝̋e̷͕̔r̶̞͝.̶̗ ̷̩̄A̷͚͐ṡ̸̠ ̴̗̇f̸̬̏o̴͙̚ŗ̵̇ ̶̥͐m̷̭̀e̸͍͐.̴̫͗.̵̰͒.̷̯̂ş̷̄h̵̩ă̵̟d̵̠o̴̠͋w̵̮̉s̷̖̐ ̶̗̂a̸̭͂n̷̤͝d̴̙͒ ̵̬̾f̶̭͌i̴̝͗r̶̞̆ê̶̢ ̷̟̄s̶̀͜h̷̡͛a̴̡̔l̶͖̊l̸̜̈́ ̷̢͑d̶̮̎a̷̭͝n̵͙̎c̵̲̿e̸̙̍ ̸̚ͅq̶̨̚u̸̬͒i̷̮̕t̴̹̊ẻ̴͕ ̴ͅp̴͎̿r̸̹͠ë̵̦́t̵̝̾ẗ̵͕i̸̡͐l̶̤̚y̵̹͌ ̸̱͂t̴̯͆ô̶̮g̵̱̕e̷̞͂t̴̖͂ḩ̴͒è̵̥r̸͑ͅ,̴͖̄ ̶̪͒ō̴̧n̷̙̊ȅ̴͉ ̵̦l̷̳̕ä̴͇s̶̺͆t̵̨͝ ̶͑ͅt̶͓͝ì̴̳m̶̤̽e̵͈̒.̴̤̑ ̵͚͛T̶̤͗h̴̙̕é̶̻ ̶͙̆o̴͙͗b̷̤͑ļ̵̆i̷̳̾ṽ̸̗i̴̘̓o̸͖̊n̶̩̍ ̷̝̓į̷̌s̸͉̃ ̷̲̽n̷̍͜o̵͍̊t̵̗̉ ̸̺̉t̷̘͋ó̸̬ ̷̩̓b̵̭̾ę̵͝ ̶͕͝f̶̬̓e̸͕͑ã̶̢r̴̞̃ě̴̞d̷̪͌,̴̦͘ ̶̆ͅb̵̭̎ȕ̵̧t̶͇̍ ̸̼̇e̸͖̕ḿ̸͓b̷͜͝ṙ̶̲a̶̱͛c̸͇͝ȇ̷͇d̴̞̚,̴͚̽ ̵̣͋ẗ̶̠́o̶̥͆ ̶̪̀r̸̗̿e̵͎͊m̷̠̈́ỉ̵̫n̵̹̕d̴̖͂ ̸̲̂ų̶̒s̶͖̿ ̸͇̾t̵̤͐ȏ̶̠ ̵̱̅č̸̟ô̶̧v̴͈̿e̸̡͘t̸͗ͅ ̴͔͠t̸̟͋ḥ̸͛ë̷͙́ ̶̟͘s̶̼̄w̵̞̿ẻ̴͎e̸̪͌ţ̷͒n̴͕̂e̵͙̕ş̸̈́s̴͖͋ ̴̼ȯ̴̠f̴̭̚ ̸͚̎l̸̗̈í̵͍f̴̟̏ĕ̶̼ ̵̹͐ȧ̵̠g̵̲͑a̵̘̿i̵̺̒n̴͙̓.̸̗̐ ̷̲̏B̷̼͗ḙ̵͐f̶͚̐o̴̩͝r̶͚̈e̴̫͗ ̶͕̀w̴̦̽e̸̺͌ ̵͇̈́g̶̱͛ṛ̷̉ö̸̮w̸̼̿ ̷̜͛t̷͇̎i̸̱͌r̸̨͝e̸͉͠d̶͎͆.̷̩͛ ̷̽ͅĪ̶̞ ̸̲͠y̴̥̋e̴̮͝a̶̘͐r̵̋͜n̷̩̉ ̴̪̅o̴̱͌n̸̠̆l̵̰y̶̥͋ ̶͌ͅf̷̫̄õ̶͈ř̷̗ ̵̛̲t̸̠͛h̷͕̽e̸͇̎ ̸̼͐a̷̘͠l̴̤͛l̷̗̑ü̶͖r̸̗̓i̶̳̐n̶ͅg̶̯̃ ̴̥̊r̸̡̿ë̵͉s̵̬̈t̸͖̎ ̸̘͒o̷̦͐f̴̱̅ ̶̳̏a̴̗ ̵̱̒d̶̦̎r̵͚̓ȅ̶͖á̴̤m̶̜̿ḷ̶̐ȩ̵͒s̵̲̎s̷̽ͅ ̷͚̓ṡ̸͓ĺ̷͍ȇ̸͖e̴͉͆p̵͓.̶͙͂ ̸̼̅A̸͇̍t̷̞̕ ̷͉̽l̵̻̿e̵̘͝ã̶͎s̷̬̉t̵͚͆ ̴͔͘f̴̝̆o̸͓͒ȓ̴͈ ̴͙̓ả̵̮ ̷̮͝l̷̺̈́i̵͙͐ť̶̳ẗ̶͙l̸̪̇ē̵͈ ̷͜w̵̗̍h̴͌͜ī̷͍l̴̹̕e̷̼͐,̷̦͒ ̴̥̍b̷̧̛e̷͓̿f̷̦͊o̸͈͝ř̵͖e̸͚ ̷͎͛I̸͓̾ ̶̏ͅb̵̰̃û̸̮ṙ̸̼n̷̆ͅ ̸̥͌a̸̤͆ģ̸͘a̴̺̽i̴͚ñ̴̲.̴͔͠ ̸̮ ̶͚̃**

And then he fell silent. The fiery pulse of the Nightmare Heart overtook all other sound, bright red eyes ever-watching. Grimm did not raise his gaze from the weak little shade he clutched in his talons, much less paid any attention to her, and she sensed that her stay within the Nightmare Realm was over.

When she awoke, it was to the sensation of tears on her face, chilling despite the warm air. Ghost and Grimmchild still slumbered deeply around her, seemingly oblivious to her struggles; her brother was still absent, the perch above them abandoned. She could only guess at the silent vigil he kept tonight.

She curled up against, staring off into the deep darkness beyond the tent’s edge, and did not fall asleep again for a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Pale King pulled a tolkien elf move and died of grief and regret imo, which is arguably the punishment that he deserved after pulling that bullcrap with the vessels. He's one of my favorite characters due to the complexity of the situation surrounding him, but he was def. on the same level as the Radiance with the amount of nasty shit that he did, so *shrugs*
> 
> The key to defeating/properly containing the Radiance was to be a vessel of pure void and you cannot convince me otherwise. Sure, a perfectly hollow vessel might keep her locked away for ages, but if poor ol Pure Vessel was capable of keeping her trapped (if not inefficiently) for a good amount of time before she started rotting them through, then who's to say that she wouldn't be able to burn through their bodies before she was completely forgotten? I know the White Lady said they failed because of 'an idea instilled', but I think that just gave Radiance a weapon to break their mind with. The real reason why they failed was because they didn't have enough Void to choke her out with; even in their Pure Vessel boss battle, they barely use any Void tactics other than teleportation (harmless on the offensive) and their Augur of Ebrietas attack. Everything else seemed like something the Pale King taught them; his love for them accidentally shaped them into someone that was clearly his kid, which meant that they didn't have the void control necessary to keep her fully under wraps. 
> 
> But lore theory over. I hope y'all like this chapter. It's going to get lighthearted soon enough, I swear it.
> 
> EDIT: Here's all the fucked-up text from Grimm/NKG if you have a hard time reading it  
Grimm: Pale King! What have you done?!  
NKG: No.  
NKG: No. I did not do it to teach you a lesson. Merely to remind you. And me. To teach me again, to covet the things that I can lose before they are gone forever. To teach us again, as we so very often do when we are gods and immortals and the very world stretches on before us to mould to our heart's content.  
NKG: To remind me that family is not forever. Not them. Not us. Not the troupe, though my flames emptied them of mortality. Everything leaves. Everything dies. Even us. All of us.  
NKG: Blood is thicker than water, flames dance faster than air. But all of it crumbles to ashes in the end.  
NKG: Only if ceasing to exist scares you, sister. As for me. Shadows and fire shall dance quite prettily together, one last time. The oblivion is not to be feared, but embraced, to remind us to covet the sweetness of life again. Before we grow tired. I yearn only for the alluring rest of a dreamless sleep. At least for a little while, before I burn again.
> 
> Edit Edit: The most wonderful JaxxCapta drew Absoloute Babiance!!! Fuckin look at her!!! Bread loaf lady!!! The most radiant of fluffins!!! I fuckin love her!!!!


	6. Reap What You've Sown, O Ruler of Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter probably would have stretched on forever but i defeated nightmare king grimm while listening to shakira after like half a month of dying to his legs and inflation attack so i went fuck it, celebratory chapter. i apologize beforehand for the excessive amount of dialogue in this one; might go back and edit later when its not 1 am. this one goes out to you shakira and her ever-so-honest hips; u da real mvp
> 
> Tw for aftereffects of self-harm/suicide in this one, though it isn't anymore excessive than what we already saw in-game. It's Hollow. 
> 
> ALSO!!! The outstanding JaxxCapta drew Babiance with her tea!!! So if you want to see an adorable breadloaf bastard caterpillar with honey in her ruff, just pop on over to the last chapter for a look, and PLEASE for the love of Grimm read their fic Broken Open Revealing Hollowness and Vibrance because holy motherfuck that shit is one of my favorite Hollow Knight fanfics, no joke. I am so weak for sibling fic y'all. You have no fuckin idea how weak I am for sibling fic

She must have drifted off at some point during the night, because when she woke up it was to the glare of a torch shining right in her face as Grimm flared his tent divider aside, an unusually cheerful spring to his step. She uncurled herself from her little coil as he tied up the tent flap, humming cheerfully to himself in his raspy voice. Ghost jolted awake in a second, sitting up in one fluid motion, but Grimmchild _ ‘mrrr-ed _’ grumpily at the light and hid his face in her fluff, not moving even when she hissed grumpily at him and shoved at his side with her legs.

“Come, little ones, it’s time for a family reunion!” Grimm scooped the both of them up before they could start a slapfight, one in either hand. Ghost hopped off the bed and slung her carrier back on. She squeaked out a mangled “Nu!” at the sight of it, the fuzziness clearing from her mind as anxiety spiked through her, but Grimm deposited her in it before she could so much as wiggle. “This night passed with no new fatalities, a success in more ways than one. I trust you rested well?” 

Ghost inclined their head back to look up at him, bouncing once on their toes. She gripped their cloak tight to keep herself steady and clawed her way up onto their shoulder, keeping the bulk of her body within the carrier. _ You know exactly how I rested, Grimm, don’t try with that. _

He winked at her, his eyelid sliding sideways in a way that she knew was probably creepy to many bugs, but just seemed unnecessarily strange to her. “Perhaps, perhaps. But it is kinder to ask than assume, and this little one’s mind was closed to me.” He smiled down at Ghost, and bowed, gesturing towards the tent’s exit. “Breakfast is being served at the dining hall, though Brumm has been kind enough to carry some to your sibling’s bedside for convenience’s sake. We needn’t dally any longer, if you so wish.”

Apparently, they wished (and what a strange thought that was), for they offered yet another little hop and set off towards the exit of the tent, their little legs carrying them as fast as they could go without jostling her. Grimm followed behind them, murmuring soft things to his child in a tone that whispered and crackled on the far edge of her hearing. Ghost paid them no mind, pausing only to let Grimm catch up to them, but she averted her gaze after catching the tail end of him speaking to the Grimmchild. It was not in a language that she understood, but one need not any language to understand that the words spoken were not for her to hear. 

So instead she focused on what she currently knew how to do best: complaining.

_ I don’t know why I’m coming with, _ she squeaked crossly. _ I am the last person who should be around that Vessel. It was meant to be the harbinger of my destruction, and I it. Who’s to say that this meeting will end peacefully? _

Grimm looked up from his child and shrugged, rearranging his ruff with one hand. The baby coiled itself tighter around his neck and butted his head up against his palm, rumbling sleepily; Radiance felt a strange spike of jealousy sing through her for a moment before she squashed it down deep, irritated by her own weakness. “And who’s to say I’m the one choosing to let you come with? That decision is not mine to make.” He gestured at the Shade Lord, waiting for him to follow, their empty mask tipped up to stare at him. “I have no doubt that the little one would have put you down if they did not wish for you to come. I know you used to encourage communication between your moths, sister- why don’t you ask them?”

...She rued the day that Grimm used the copious blackmail he’d accumulated against her. For now, however, she hissed grumpily at him and turned to Ghost, leaning herself back so that she could see them better. They turned to look at her instead of her brother, void flickering lightly from their eye sockets, which wasn’t creepy at _ all _and she refused to be intimidated by it.

_ What say you, darkling? _ She thought at them, resigning herself to the cold briar tangle of their thoughts. It was impossible to tell if what she was saying was making it through to them; unlike everyone else, she could not hear her voice echoing back within the bounds of their mind. It was like trying to scream into a pillow, trying to cry out when trapped underwater. _ Are you bringing me along to enact revenge, or are you doing it out of a sense of misguided hope? _

Flicker, flicker, writhe. The void staring back out through their strange porcelain face churned and swirled like their mask wasn’t enough to contain them- and it wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t, knew how tightly they constrained themselves to make themselves seem like a mortal bug. It was impossible for her to understand why they desired to do so, especially when she had felt how the Hollow Knight’s shade raged against the bindings lashing it down when it was too exhausted to keep her from clawing at it. 

Grimm paused by their side, and silently offered his hand. They grabbed ahold of it without looking at him, tiny hand dwarfed by his claws. Then, cautiously, the Shade Lord reached their thoughts out to her, tendrils of darkness flickering through her mind as they latched on. She shuddered, and clung tighter to their cloak; even when they weren’t trying to hurt her, the dark was so oppressive and so antithetical to who she was that trying to ignore her fear was impossible.

They showed her an image of a lost shade, a physical manifestation of regret and pain hovering uselessly in the air, staring out into the world through empty white eyes. They impressed the feeling of a nail cleaving through that shade’s thorax into her mind; she felt the strange heaviness drag at the phantom weapon in her left forearm, the rush of cold fullness folding over her as they accepted the stain of their past within them. What had severed their connection to it meant nothing. All that mattered was that they accepted their past, their regrets, and moved on.

Also, the shade had their geo. That’s where they kept it all, and losing their shade twice also meant losing the tenuous link to the pocket dimension that they used as a wallet. This little snippet was information was dropped into her mind alongside a visual that could only be described as a poorly-drawn frowny face, as if the artist had some idea of what upset people looked like but didn’t really know how to express it past two dots and a curved line.

** _War-done tired sibling tired hurt war gone tired tired tired. You burn. They burn. Hurt hurt hurt. _ ** They punctuated this with a gut-deep ache in their chest, a dragging sense of wrongness that weighed them down, urged them to fix it. An instinct, an impulse to not let old regrets lie. ** _ Show. Show war done. Show fight done. Heal. Fix. Help!_ **

The Radiance stared at them. They stared back. The void within their eye sockets flickered, flickered, writhed. Not once did they look away, not when Grimm started to rustily purr out another tune to fill the silence, not when the Grimmchild stuck his head up from under his wing to mewl along. 

...For once, she felt like she was dealing with an actual child instead of her old enemy born again in a new body. A creepy, unnatural child, sure, but that same unrealistic optimism was hard to find anywhere, and even harder to stay mad at. 

_Fine._ She unhooked her claws from their cloak and inched her body back into her carrier, trying vainly to squish herself down out of sight. It didn’t work as well as she wished, her luminous fluff spilling out everywhere, but it made her feel secure, at least. The absence of her anger only served to remind her that she would be seeing her gaoler again, and if she didn’t distract herself from her fear then the anxiety churning in her guts would choke her. She would noy be afraid, she would not be afraid she would not... _As long as you don’t let them trap me again. If you are so dedicated to redemption, then you’d better ensure I live long enough to attempt it._

A twisty, swirling feeling, like their mind had gotten turned around about something and they didn’t know how to stop it. She expected them to pull away, to retreat back into themselves where her light couldn’t hurt them, but they kept that feeling hovering between them like an offering. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that they were- oh. 

_ That’s confusion _ **, **she thought at them, their own unawareness of their emotions bothering her, and the word echoed back at her in her voice twice over before they withdrew, attention shifting back to the tents. It distracted her from her anxiety somewhat, she had to admit. Even when she had watched over caterpillars at the height of her people’s prosperity, they did not often need to ask her what emotions were. Strange, then, that the Shade Lord would feel comfortable enough to go to her for aid, no matter how shakily it was asked.

Grimm lead them through a maze of tents, calling out greetings to the bugs hustling around them. Little Ghost watched each one wander by, thoroughly distracted, leaving her to deal with the icy cold anxiety spiking through her body- or so she thought. As they paused before one tent separate from the others, they sent her another thought, an affirmation; they wouldn’t let anything happen to her. They knew their sibling, hollowed out by more than just the void they were born from. She was safe. Just as long as she didn’t summon any light beams. Or light balls. Those had hurt.

_No promises,_ she muttered, trying to squash herself down further into her carrier. Grimm went ahead, still humming his tune, and she felt a little of the tension in the air around her go slack as the protective enchantments he’d woven around the tent eased up. Instinctively, she reached for the minds of the bugs she had commanded during her rule of the dream realm, to try to see what was going on from an outside perspective- but she had been usurped, her mental range cut short, and the presence of three other Higher Beings in close proximity messed heavily with her senses. She was effectively blind, unless she decided to risk poking her head out.

So she unsquashed herself, ignoring the fear screaming through her, and inched her way back up to hide behind the Shade Lord’s nail sheath. They didn’t even spare a glance back at her, their little form practically vibrating as Grimm finished loosening his protective charms and casually procured a length of rope from under his cloak, tying up the tent flap with a flourish.

“Apologies for the delay,” he rasped at Ghost, “Those under my care rarely fall ill, but injuries are common among any circus. I take no chances with my troupe.” Then, with a flick of his cape, he swept inside, bowing to them again as they hopped excitedly and ran in. She’d hiss at his theatrics, if she wasn’t so busy clinging to their cape.

Grimm hadn’t announced their presence, and she soon saw why; the two inhabitants of the tent were both sleeping, huddled in a cozy nest of blankets on the ground. The massive white horns of the Hollow Knight stuck out from somewhere within the cocoon of messy red cloth, but she saw precious little of the rest of its body, snugly wrapped away from the elements. Tattered spell sheets were draped over the lump of its sleeping form, etched with healing enchantments; there was a strange, lonesome whistle in the air, like the sound of a breeze playing over reeds, but she couldn’t place where it was coming from, or what its purpose was. Not that she was particularly invested in figuring it out; she had frozen at the sight of those horns, remembering what it had felt like to be trapped in a tomb of living void, darkness all around her, smothering her, crushing her. It was only the experience of years of godly warfare that allowed her to detach herself from her fear, let her eyes continue to seek out escape routes rather than fix on her jailer, wait for it to rouse and snap her up.

The other inhabitant was the strange half-spider she had seen through the eyes of many other bugs, needle balanced on her knees as she dozed. She was leaning back against the Hollow Knight’s blanketed form- whether out of family familiarity, or sheer ignorance of the danger they posed, she did not know- her legs crossed, head resting against her chest. Only the rise and fall of her shoulders indicated that she was truly alive, and not some foreboding statue or illusion Grimm had erected to keep enemies away. Strange, to see her asleep; the Radiance could remember trying to enter her mind on the off days that the Hollow Knight was too weak to try to stop her, all the times she tried to catch her dreaming, to find some fantasy she could twist into her control. It had been nigh-impossible. Not only was the spiderling skilled at defending her mind from outside intruders, she also just didn’t _ sleep. _

The Shade Lord walked right up to the edge of the nest and paused, tilting their head as they stared up at their half-sister. She squashed herself further into her carrier, down until the rim of it fit just over her head, and then wriggled her way to the side a little bit so that she could see around their shoulder without (hopefully) being too obvious. Grimm made that strange clicking noise in his throat again, and untied the tent flap again, letting it fall shut. With the outside lights blocked, and only the dim red light of the infirmary lanterns lit, the tent seemed smaller somehow, closer; like they were inside some great animal’s heart. She found it a little unnerving, but it was most likely soothing to those who had given themselves to the Nightmare King. “Poor pupa. She spent the entire night with us, spinning bandages and draining wounds. Even with our aid, even with us trying to be gentle, her dreams were fraught with nightmares.” He looked down at Little Ghost, hovering by his side with a strange hesitance, and tipped his head to match them. “Why do you linger? Are you shy? Your sister is a fierce fighter, I must admit, I would be afraid to wake her as well.”

Ghost looked up at them, then looked back to their sleeping siblings as if they didn’t know what to do. The Grimmchild stirred from his place around his father’s neck, then launched himself full-force at the little god, _ nyah-ing _ encouragingly before settling between their horns, tipping them forward. She squeaked irritably at him, trying to nip at the tail threatening to smack her in the face, and then squashed herself right back in when one of the spiderling’s claws twitched on her needle.

The encouragement worked, at the very least. Ghost reached up to give their companion a little pat, then leaned forward and cautiously placed a hand on their sister’s wrist, as if they thought that her carapace would burn them. The spiderling sucked in a breath and jolted awake, claws latching tight around her needle. Ghost scrambled back, the carrier swinging uncomfortably as they hopped back to a safe distance, and their sister’s head followed the motion, jerking towards her sibling with her weapon swinging up, ready to be thrown- and then she stared at them, frozen in place for one long, painful second as she processed what stood before her.

“Little Ghost?” Her voice was rough, and cracked painfully in a way that she would probably cringe at later. The Radiance knew how prideful she was, a trait passed down by both insufferable parents. Her needle tip quivered, then lowered back to her side, its dangerous, flashing edge tipping away from Ghost’s soft, vulnerable body. “But you were dead.”

Ghost jolted a bit, then reached out and placed both their hands on hers, staring up at her. She twitched a bit under their grasp, but didn’t move away, scrutinizing their mask for damage. Grimmchild nyah-ed defensively at her, his maw opening as if he were about to spit fire, and Grimm summoned him back to his side with a snap of his fingers, scolding him quietly under his breath. Hornet hardly seemed to notice, too focused on her lost sibling. “This cannot be. I _ saw _ you die. I saw your mask, broken in the Black Egg Temple. I must still be dreaming.” She shook her head a bit, and turned away from them to glare up at Grimm, who had retreated to the tent wall to give the family a little bit of privacy. “If this is a dream, Troupe Master, release me. It does me no good to reminisce on things that cannot be.”

“I disagree, Princess, if thoughts of your siblings linger in guilt rather than fondness for what they used to be. But fear not! This is no dream.” Grimm spread his claws wide, the edges of his cape flaring out. The fire in the lanterns flickered and danced with his movements, and the Hollow Knight’s horns twitched as they buried themselves deeper in the blanket pile, presumably away from the light. The Radiance momentarily forgot how to breathe. “They came to me a little while ago, deep in the night. I would have reunited you sooner, but your larger sibling was in such a fragile state that I felt like it was too risky. My apologies.”

Hornet’s grip on her needle relaxed a bit, though the Radiance saw her chelicerae work under her mask. Ghost patted her arm again, slowly becoming more and more bold the longer their sister went without trying to fight them, and soon began tapping their little paws all over her wrist, to a tempo that only they knew.

“I apologize for my suspicion,” Hornet said, sounding not at all apologetic. Ghost reached up to try to bat at her face, and she absentmindedly held up her hands to try to stop them, swatting with her claws curled in towards her palm. “These are trying times- oh, you’re _freezing.”_ She sucked in a sharp breath, jerking back as Ghost’s little hand pressed against her palm, in the soft space between the chitin plates. Their movements stilled, going limp in her hold as she grabbed their hands and turned them over, staring at them as if she could figure out what they had become through palm reading. “Surely this can’t be the effect of the Voidheart? But no...you weren’t this cold when you met me at the temple. Just did you _do_**, **Little Ghost?”

“What the children of many other gods could only ever dream of achieving,” rasped Grimm. “They have ascended into their birthright.”

That struck a nerve; Hornet glared at him, her ire fierce enough to actually make the Radiance a little nervous. If that anger were turned on her… “Cryptid answers to simple questions help me little, Master Grimm. Please, I have had a long enough night without having to deal with_ riddles.” _

Grimm just shrugged. Grimmchild was teething on one of his horns, sharp little baby teeth stark against black chitin. “I am not often the god others go to for advice, and so I speak in the way any other Higher Being would to another, with enough flair and mystery to not allow easy manipulation. Surely you must understand, as scion of the Pale Wyrm and foundling of the White Lady.”

Hornet growled, a startlingly low chirring noise that rumbled deep in her throat. The ever-present whistle in the room paused for a moment, then resumed when her snarl died down. The Lord of Shades stared at her throat, fascinated, and reached out to try to touch where the sound came from, half-climbing into her lap to do so. She shoved at them with one hand, but that did not deter them in the slightest, their hesitance long gone once the realization they did not need to fight set in. “That does not make it any easier to deal with. Merely- Little Ghost, kindly stop trying to touch me-oh Wyrm, _ is that a grub on your back.” _

The Radiance jumped, then swore (or, rather, attempted to) quietly under her breath. Never before had she cursed her natural luminescence, but now that the spiderling had caught a glimpse of her she did not seem inclined to stop staring, craning her neck over to peer down into the carrier.

Behind the both of them, Grimm snickered. Had the Hollow Knight not been in the same room as them, the press of its sun-blasted mind threateningly close, she would have squealed at him again to vent her nerves, but her fear of waking the old vessel overwhelmed her pride and silenced her. She could do little else than stare back at the princess and try her damndest to not seem afraid, and silently hope that her ancient rival would allow her some mercy in her plight.

Alas, it was not to be. The Shade Lord twisted around to look at her, then wriggled their shoulders a little bit and _ slid the carrier off, _ dropping her gently down into the floor. She unsquashed herself from her little loaf and tried to inch away, somewhere she could hide under the blankets until it was all over, but their cold little claws latched around her waist and _ lifted, _and she found herself deposited into the spiderling’s lap like something a wild pet would drop at their master’s door.

Grimm’s chuckles rose to full-out laughter, gratingly loud in the quiet of the tent. She glared at him through her terror, curling away from Hornet’s claws, and tried her best to squirm away- but one of her legs got caught in some leftover silk stuck to Hornet’s cloak, and she tripped, nearly rolling off her lap before the princess caught her, awkwardly scooping her back up to safety. 

Through it all, the Hollow Knight made no appearance from its blanket nest, horns barely moving with each breath and so dangerously, terrifyingly close now that she could do little else other than huddle lower into her lap and watch it, even as Hornet awkwardly tried to untangle her own silk. The spiderling lounged against them so nonchalantly, spoke to the Lord of Shades so freely- did she realize what her sibling had become? There had been a darkness in her mind, when the Radiance had touched her thoughts, a faint shadow that she could sense as her claws buried into her fur. Had the Void touched her too, even if it hadn’t warped her in the egg? Had she the capacity to fear the creatures she was related to?

“Where did you find this grub, Little Ghost? I have never seen one of its like, though it bears some passing resemblance to a butterfly’s brood.” With the silk trap gone, Hornet cautiously slid a hand under the Radiance’s front half and tipped her up to look at her. Her eyes were much less foreboding than than any vessel’s, with actual lenses glinting back from the depths of her mask rather than living void, though there was a wildness to them that betrayed her heart, fierce and free under the deceptive delicacy of her features. “I had not thought that there were any butterflies left in Hallownest.”

“You are close, princess. She is a caterpillar, though not that of a butterfly’s. Rather, she is a relative of mine, a member of the species that I used to be.” Grimm’s rasping voice came a little closer, lingering amusement thickening his accent; the Radiance tried to turn around to see what he was doing, but her unfortunate lack of a neck prevented her from moving very far. She did, however, hear the clatter of silverware somewhere- breakfast, perhaps? She hoped it was breakfast, as she was probably hungry again; it was hard to tell under the pounding of her heart “Not a foreigner to these ancient lands by any means, but our little wanderer friend has a knack for finding things long sealed away or lost. Pay no mind to her, she’s harmless.”

“I’ll judge that myself, thank you.” Hornet slid her claws under her back end and lowered down onto the floor, and the Radiance made a beeline for her carrier, trying her best to look dignified while she did so. Somehow, she doubted she managed it, but when she turned around after an unsuccessful attempt at squashing herself back in, neither of the siblings were watching, and the rest of the Hollow Knight had yet to make a reappearance. She tried to attribute her relief to saving her already-wounded pride, but it fell flat. Little Ghost was attempting to climb up into Hornet’s lap again, the glimmer of their wings occasionally flaring out from their cloak before Hornet placed a hand on their face and shoved them back down. “I have been listening to the townsfolk when making supply runs. There are bugs coming up from the ruins again, bugs who speak of the Infection withering away to a darkness that leeches the heat from all that it touches. Mostly they speak in relief, but others claim that those previously infected have started to leak darkness from their eyes, and cannot be roused, though they seem to only be sleeping. And many more talk of sleep without dreams, or shadows writhing where they shouldn’t.” She frowned at the Radiance, who had given up attempting to re-squish herself back in the carrier in favor of trying to hide behind it. She still could not see Grimm like this, vision obscured by folds of fabric and old wing covers, but she thought she could smell something sweet in the air, under the faint stench of old Infection and the metallic tang of Grimm’s fire. Strangely muffled, given his proximity, but still there. 

Frankly, though, she was more concerned with what the spiderling was recounting than breakfast, at the moment. She had been exerting an unusual amount of influence over the bugs of Hallownest before the Godseekers and the lost hatchling had come for her to take her throne. Were they not born to free the bugs from her power? Why would they refuse to pull their darkness from their minds, now that they were granted the chance?

Evidently, Grimm did not share her confusion, for he merely gave a thoughtful hum before setting a silver platter laden with food and drink on a table next to the nest. The Radiance caught a glimpse of more tempura leaves and clicked her mandibles together in anticipation, inching out a little more from her hiding spot. Maybe if she snatched a leaf while the two were talking, she could snack on something out of the line of sight. Surely the old vessel would not be tempted enough by the scent of food to wake… “It sounds to me as if your little sibling has stopped the Old Light for good. You mentioned a Voidheart, did you not? It may be possible that the old plague was converted into something new, incapable of withstanding its ancient enemy. It would explain why your sibling was not wreaked beyond repair, had the Infection changed to something kinder.” He picked up a slab of meat wrapped in a thin, papery substance and held it out to her, taking nothing for himself. “Here, my dear, have some crawlid. I have heard that it is most excellent with a bit of seasoning.” 

Hornet ignored his offering and scrubbed at her mask with her front talons, the first real display of frustration that she’d shown the entire conversation. Despite the Radiance’s dislike for her hostility, she had to admit that the girl had decorum, more than she’d expected from a child of the Beast and the Pale Wyrm. She herself would have resorted to lasers long before then. “That’s the _ problem _ . The Infection was replaced with living void, but void benefits only those also of void, like Hollow. All the survivors are stuck in a dreamless sleep, and no one who has tried can rouse them. If we don’t wake them soon, the Abyss will corrupt them, and _ then _where will we be? None of the servants the King sent down to the abyss came back whole, if they did at all. They might not be hostile, they may only be sleeping, but that means little when no one knows what the dread sea’s calling.” 

She stuck an accusatory finger at Ghost, who looked down at themselves and then back up at her as if they had no idea what she was upset about. The whistling noise in the room paused again, then resumed, louder, as she continued. “I don’t know _ what _you did, Little Ghost, but whatever it is, you have to try to fix it. You have gone above and beyond to stop the infection, I must admit, but you and Hollow are the only creatures of void left, and they are too weak to head down there for you. I can’t-”

The blankets rustled, spell-sheets slipping to the floor as the lump under the covers _ moved _. Then, with little fanfare, a massive, dark, claw-tipped hand reached up behind her and patted her gently between the horns, palm nearly covering her forehead. Hornet stiffened, falling silent, and twisted her head around to give the culprit a sharp, measured stare, flipping back one of the blankets so that her disapproval could be seen clearly. 

And with a harsh, bubbling wheeze, the Hollow Knight twisted on its side and shook off the remaining blankets wrapped around itself, craning its huge head up to look at her. The Radiance’s breath caught, all her thoughts turning to white-hot panic as it shifted and struggled weakly to right itself on its remaining forelimb, the dark void of its unmarred eye turning outwards to its sister. Its cracked eye socket was wrapped in a strange, glimmering bandage that glowed faintly with residual soul, where it wasn’t stained through with black tears; it was blind there, she remembered numbly, half of their sight stolen when she had cracked its mask and a shard of its own shell had pierced the void forming its right eye. She remembered that. That had been the first time it had screamed with the voice she had given it, its agony and hers mingling into a cry of pain that had echoed long in the minds of the bugs she held in her thrall. She remembered how much it hurt, screaming from a throat that was never meant to make sound, how much the vessel had panicked when it realized that it could hold her no longer, when she had burst free from the shackles of its mind in all her glory. Even after she rotted its arm off, after she had broken its body, after a lifetime knowing of its own untimely demise, it had still thrashed like a scared child when half its sight went dark.

...And that was what it was, wasn’t it? A child. It had grown into its adult form, but to a god who lived over a thousand years that was a mere blink in the eye of time. She remembered how indignant she had been when she realized how young they were, how humiliating it had been to be bound by a godling only a few summers out of the egg, and fear and shame burned in her throat in equal measures.

“You should not be moving.” Hornet was currently scolding the vessel as if it _ wasn’t _ a creature that could easily pick her up by the horns and throw her through the wall, if it so wished. “If you do not take more care with your injuries, your wounds will tear open again, and I know for a _ fact _ that you don’t have the soul or void to heal it easily. Wait a little, until you’ve recuperated.”

The Hollow Knight huffed out a puff of air at her- oh everlasting sands and sweeps, the whistle was them _ breathing- _ and then laid its head down by her side, pressing the curve of one massive white horn against her so that she was fully tucked up against its side. Little Ghost, frozen again at the sight of the Hollow Knight moving, quickly shook off the last of their nerves and shadow dashed up into her lap, ignoring their sister’s startled exclamation as flyaway tendrils of void thrashed from their distorted silhouette.

The Hollow Knight jerked its head back on reflex, hunching its head down in a manner that the Radiance instinctively knew would have been a block, had it still had its nail. For a moment, the rasping wheeze in its chest increased, the horrible empty whistle rattling in its throat, and Little Ghost twitched backwards, their wings flaring out from under their cloak as if in preparation to dodge- but no blow ever came. Instead, the Hollow Knight slowly uncurled itself from its defensive position and took its remaining hand from its resting spot on its sister’s back, reaching out into the gap between them. It kept its claws curled inward, movements slow, though nothing could disguise the shaking wracking its body. Whether from pain, its weakness, or some hidden emotion, she had no idea, and the knowledge shamed her. She had spent ages in its mind, submersed with nothing but the strange cold writhe of their thoughts to keep her company. For a while, she had done nothing but speak nonsense to it, when she was bored or tired of her confinement, falling into the habits of ages past where she would spend years chatting with her moths. She had taken pride in remembering each individual facet of their minds, using her knowledge to better their lives. Was she really so blinded by her anger that she could not read the cues of her old jailer, even after ages spent in its presence? Even the crystals of the mountain were more familiar to her than half its cues, and they were fucking rocks.

Either way, it mattered little to the Shade Lord. They tentatively reached out and touched their sibling’s hand with theirs, the breadth of one claw nearly as thick as their palm, then dropped their arm and shoved their entire face into the Hollow Knight’s hand. The old vessel pressed its thumb to one horn, sweeping along the curve of it, and pulled their smaller sibling closer, touching their foreheads together. Hornet leaned back to accommodate them, looking distinctly uncomfortable, but she couldn’t move very far away, caught between the two of them as she was. 

The two void-touched siblings stayed stationary for a few moments before Little Ghost grew restless and squirmed away, sliding off Hornet’s lap so that they could lounge comfortably on the cushions by their family. The Hollow Knight lowered its head down in the space between them, still trembling, breath coming in harsh wheezes- what little she could see of the rest of their body was covered in bandages. She couldn’t touch its mind to see what it was thinking, didn’t dare to slip back into that ruined consciousness. Clearly there was something happening to it. It- no, _ they- _ deserved some privacy with their thoughts, some privacy with their family. 

She thought briefly of the howling maelstrom of pain that had shrieked through their mind when the little shadow had cut their chains, and then tried her very best to not think at all. If she did, she...she didn’t know what she would do. There was a tightness in her chest that she didn’t want to deal with, a swimming in her head that hurt. It was so much easier to be angry than to regret what she had done.

“Are you done now?” Hornet’s tone was, perhaps, a little gentler than normal, though she still sounded as if she was about to do battle with an entire parliament of stuffy bureaucrats. “I, for one, am quite hungry after a long night of supply runs and wound cleaning, and Hollow needs to get their strength back up. Little Ghost, I do not expect you to eat if you do not need to, but I must insist you not run off before Hollow has recovered enough to walk. You are the root of this issue, and I need you to solve it.”

She wriggled out from the sibling pile to settle on the edge of the nest near the breakfast platter, her grace and dignity at odds with the haphazard mess of blankets, pillows, and healing spells strewn about. The Shade Lord gave her a look that could only be read as ‘affronted’ and scrambled into the spot that she left behind, wrapping themselves up in a blanket as they went, and the Radiance watched, bemused, as Hornet elected to ignore them rather than acknowledge their foolishness.

“I know not the customs of your tribe, but in Deepnest, the ruler eats first, as hunter and protector of the nest.” She plucked up the same slice of meat that Grimm had tried to feed her, and held it out in offering. “Therefore, as you are master of this troupe, I must extend this favor to you, in lieu of proper manners.”

He stared back at her from his perch in the shadows, silent for a long moment, then shook his head. “We pay no mind to special customs here, merely create some of our own from the scattered scraps of troupe memories. That being said, I would be honoured, princess, but I must refuse. I must fast before the ritual starts, to better ensure its completion, though I am allowed some types of drink.” He approached the table and picked up a glass of what appeared to be fruit juice, tilting it towards her with a slight grin. “A toast, princess, to your health as well as your family’s. I have never seen a kingdom’s rise, only ever its demise. You have granted me a unique opportunity to change that, even if I may not be able to stay for much longer.”

Hornet nodded gravely at him, then set down the slice of meat and picked up a whole tiktik, the little bug’s legs still weakly wriggling as she held it out to her sibling. “Here, Hollow, eat this. You are generous to share your food with us. I assume that the leaves are for the grub, then.”

The Radiance stiffened, and tried to squish herself lower behind the carrier, hoping desperately that Grimm would cover for her. The Hollow Knight did not seem to notice that there was anything amiss, the tiktik disappearing under the point of their mask with a tremendous _ crack _of snapping chitin, but that was no clear indication of their thoughts. They had been raised to appear an automaton in the White Palace, and that sort of training was not easily forgotten.

Grimm, however, did _ not _ try to help, because he was an asshole who was determined to see her humiliated in every way possible. Instead of denying it or changing the subject, like a _ normal, supportive _brother would, he took a sip of fruit juice and looked directly at her hiding place, tilting his head.“You’re correct. Why don’t you come out, little one? You cannot stay hidden away forever, you’ll get a bellyache again.” 

She was tempted to hiss, so, _ so _ tempted to hiss, but fear locked her throat. She could not move. She refused to move. If the Hollow Knight saw her, they would kill her again, she was sure of it. And this time, she had no followers, no dreamer influence, no split-power to fall back on and revive. She would die for real this time, a shadow of her former self, she would not come out, she refused-

In her stubborn panic, she failed to keep track of the Shade Lord’s location. She didn’t even hear them approach, their soft shell and void nature muting their footsteps, didn’t know they were right behind her until their cold little hands grabbed her around the middle and hoisted her into the air, hop-dashing over her carrier to plop her closer to the breakfast tray. Caught in a panic, she squeaked out a shrill wail that sounded like one of her battle screams, if her scream was created by a balloon deflating rather than a majestic goddess who had commanded the dreams of all living things in her heyday. 

Caught by surprise, Hornet nearly choked on her meal of spiced crawlid, giving the Radiance a blistering stare to hide her moment of indignity. The Hollow Knight did not startle- such a thing would be most unbecoming of a knight of the palace, much less a creature supposedly incapable of emotion. Instead, they jerked to their knees and slowly twisted their head around, scanning the room for threats with their one good eye. They ignored their sister’s irritable muffled grunts entirely, focusing only on trying to find the threat.

And then they saw her. 

And they froze.

It happened in an instant. One moment, they were staring at her, still half-wrapped in blankets, and in the next, their silhouette flashed dark, massive talons catching around her middle, pinning her down. Somewhere in the distance, Hornet was demanding they tell her what was wrong, and Grimm was hissing something in alarm- it all meant nothing to her. All she could see was the ruin of their mask, the dark of their eye boring into hers, accusing, understanding. 

Recognizing.

Desperately, instinctively, she lashed out with her mind- a mistake, a huge, huge mistake. She had burned a place for herself into their mind, destroyed their consciousness to make it her nest. When she reached out, her mind slotted with theirs in an instant, the full force of their emotions crashing into hers.

_ Pain! _

_ Pain! Pain burning FEAR pain pain pain! _

_ The little sibling, looking just like they did in the abyss, long ago, in the dreams where they clashed blades. Small and scared, scared but determined. They thought they were Father for how they shone but Father never raised a nail to them was never afraid of them was never jealous never scared never cold. Father loved them. This little shadow, so close to home, never knew them long enough to love them. _ **(KILL THEM)** _ . What they felt was a complex tangle in their chest that whispered out from the void of their heart and touched all the cold dark places of their mind that they restrained in the glow of the White Palace and they knew that the little one couldn’t sense their thoughts under the protective spells but they could sense _ ** _them_ ** _ , a pulling darkness that was just like father’s light but gentler, more familiar. _ **(KILL THEM DESTROY THE SHADOW DEATH TO THE INTERLOPER)**

** _I_ ** ** _t h u r t_ **

_ The little sibling flinching from them, hurt hurt hurt by their blade by movements that were their own and not their own. The light _ ** _shrieked _ ** _ in their head compelled them in a voice just like Father’s and there was not enough left of them to resist. Their body B U R N E D fever-hot and their arm moved without them telling it to, hurting their little one, killing their family. _

**(KILL THEM!)**

_ The weight of a nail in hand, the cold shock of it piercing through their chest, the overwhelming pressure before the pain came. The relief of it, ice-cold agony shivering through them where before there was only the burning of the light. They had failed, they had failed and they were killing their sibling who was home who was a part of them the only child of abyss that was left and it hurt it hurt it HURT. _

_ Again. Stab again. Be done with it. End it. Let it be done. Let it end. Please. _

_ I left you to die once I’m so sorry I’m so _ ** _sorry_ ** _ I won’t hurt you again not again not again I refuse- _

** _(STOP THIS NONSENSE!)_ **

** _(KILL THEM!)_ **

_ **I̸ ̴W̷O̴U̷L̵D̵ ̶R̴A̴T̵H̸E̷R̴ ̸D̷I̷E̴!̴** _

Their mind _ howled _ with pain, a maelstrom of light and hurt and a darkness that refused to settle, that thrashed inside the bonds it had been placed into. The Pale King had placed binds upon their shell, to keep their shade locked safely within, and though she knew that they were not infallible the seething writhe of the shadows she had beat into submission terrified her, scared her just as much as she scared them.

_ Stop! Stop it, I’m sorry! _

She could not help herself- she squealed like a child, flailing her little legs uselessly against their hand. It was as effective as attempting to move a mountain by hitting it with a pillow, but what she didn’t expect was for them to flinch back as she screamed, dropping her like she burned them. Terrified, she instinctively curled herself up into a little ball and summoned a corona of nails around her head, the drain on her energy hardly noticeable over the pounding of her heart. The Hollow Knight flinched as they materialized, curling their hand up towards their chest- without her mind pressing into theirs, she had no idea what they were thinking, but they seemed almost remorseful about their actions, keeping their head low and their arm tucked back, even as Hornet yanked at the tatters of their cloak, demanding answers that they could not give.

Or maybe they were just clutching at their chest. She could not see much, past her own fluff and the cloak half-covering them, but the bandages she could see were slowly darkening with void, their wounds torn back open from their lunge. And then she could see nothing at all, as a writhing mass of darkness lunged in front of her and Grimm scooped her up.

No matter her previous irritation with her brother; after the cold burn of the Hollow Knight’s hand, the familiar burning heat of his carapace was the comfort she needed to calm herself down. He said nothing to her, but the possessive way he held her close was telling enough, and there was a low vibration in his chest that she suspected would be a stressed chirr or a growl if he wasn’t currently trying to act the adult in the situation. 

When she finally wriggled around enough in his hold to see what was going on behind them, she was greeted with the sight of a standoff; the Hollow Knight hunching low, with Hornet holding them steady, and Little Ghost standing directly in front of where she had been pinned, a terrifying, writhing tangle of void flickering out from under their cape. She had no idea what was transpiring between them, silent as they were, but the void oozing from the Hollow Knight’s wounds twitched and flickered like they were trying their best not to weaponize it, and the tendrils wreathing the Shade Lord spasmed about in short, angry bursts. Hornet, for the most part, had stopped demanding answers, but the way she kept looking between the two ex-vessels implied that she would not be quiet for much longer.

Eventually, the Hollow Knight stopped flickering their void about ominously and resorted to a sharp hand gesture, something that the Radiance vaguely remembered as being the sign for ‘incautious’ merged with another, more indecipherable meaning. In response, the Shade Lord stamped one foot and drew their nail with the other, flaring the dull part of the blade at them as they tapped it against the floor of the tent; the Hollow Knight did not seem to take offense, but snorted out another wheezing breath at them and staggered uncertainly back to their feet, wobbling back to collapse into the nest with a raspy, bubbling sigh that hurt to hear. 

Crisis apparently averted, the Shade Lord sheathed their nail again and padded over to Grimm, the writhing tendrils of shadow retreating back under their cloak. When they stopped in front of them and reached up their arms to take her, there was nothing out of the ordinary about them, if any creature born of Wyrm, Root, and Void could look ‘ordinary’. 

Grimm brushed his claws through her fur once, then gently placed her down into their arms. For once, she didn’t try to struggle away- they had clearly just defended her then, and she was still too shocked from the previous encounter to protest. And the Shade Lord’s hands, though cold and unwelcoming, were soft and deceptively gentle as they stroked through her fur.

Across the breakfast tray, the Hollow Knight stared, and then with an abrupt jerk of their horns they twisted away, hiding their face under the crook of their arm. She startled at the motion, and curled her legs inwards, recalling again their horror, their pain, their terror.

Stars and sunlight, what had she _ done? _

“Okay,” growled Hornet, once it was clear that the quarrel was over. She was twitching slightly, fingers glimmering with silk, as if she wanted nothing more than to grab her needle and fix the problem by stabbing it very violently through the heart. The Hollow Knight seemed completely unphased by her tic, shifting a little closer so that the cracked side of their mask was pressing lightly against her back, shoring up their blind side. Little Ghost was not so easy; their stubby little fingers tightened in the Radiance’s fur everytime a strand of glowing soul wove between her claws. “What in my father’s name just happened here? Why on earth did that ‘harmless’ grub just summon ethereal nails, and why did Hollow react so violently to it?” She slowly turned her accusing stare between them all, though the Hollow Knight was still staunchly refusing to raise their head up where they could see her glaring at them, and thus neatly managed to avoid her anger. “Anyone care to explain?”

“Certainly, your Highness, though I will warn you now that recounting our tale is hardly proper breakfast conversation, and thus must wait until after our spirits have settled from an adequate feed.” Grimm’s tone was as jovial as ever, but there was a certain dry quality to it that betrayed his weariness. She was certain that she’d enjoy it more, if it weren’t for the fact that she was still shaky. He had been a constant drain on her energy when they were both younger, with his wild ideas and his tendency for change, and now that their positions were switched she couldn’t deny that there was an odd sort of appeal to tiring out her younger (older?) brother. 

But Grimm was a showman first and foremost, and when he clapped his hands together and smiled at the sullen sibling trio, it almost seemed genuine. “Now, then. Who’s ready for some tea?”

Little Ghost put up a hand. Hornet glowered. The Hollow Knight staunchly ignored all of them, still as the statue erected in the citadel below, and the Radiance said nothing, not at all wishing for a recount of last night’s teasing. For a long, painful moment, the silence stretched, broken only by the whistle of the Hollow Knight breathing- and then the Grimmchild sneezed out a ball of fire, teleported himself into the center of the room with a shriek of surprise, and crashed directly into the platter of food, sending bits of cured meat and leaves scattering everywhere in a moment of clumsiness that was quite effective at breaking the tension but not so conductive as to actually finishing the meal.

The Radiance sighed and pushed her face into the folds of the Shade Lord’s cloak, trying to avoid the resounding ruckus of a grub messily trying to extract himself from a bowl of raw bug entrails, and resigned herself to a long, painful morning. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hollow has, in my opinion, what I like to affectionately call Big Horse Syndrome, which occurs when people look at this massive-ass horse that is usually unfortunately tall and gangly and go 'oh holy fucking shit, that is a Bigass Horse', and then they proceed to be very very frightened of said horse, because it's six feet tall at the shoulder and has a head that is larger than your torso, but the fear ends up being rather unfounded because this Bigass Horse is actually a very gentle and kind of awkward friend with only a tenuous grasp of how unreasonably large they are who really just wants to affectionately mouth at your hair and follow you around the paddock interrupting your work for hugs and facerubs, and in the incidence of them actually becoming irritable with you and getting reprimanded usually turn into a big shocked sorrowful baby who will pout in a corner like :( until you forgive them for it so they can go back to lipping at your pockets for treats
> 
> Do I speak from experience? Yes. Also, speaking from experience: trust the big horses over the little ones, ponies might be cute but they fear only god and will kill you if you wake them up without offering a suitable bribe first. And also, please remember- if your horse bites you and draws blood easily, you don't have a horse, you have a fucking kelpie and you should probably get that fixed.
> 
> As for serious headcanons in this chapter: Void beings only require physical food when they need to regenerate more void, since their bodies are made up entirely of liquid void-goop approximating organs n important shit, which means when you run out of said void goop you coincidentally run out of organs, which, as you can imagine, is kind of a fuckin problem


	7. Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uuugh this took longer than I wanted to bc School(tm). That's the main reason why I'm not updating as quick anymore. Partially because of all the dialogue and introspection (Radiance and Grimm are both talkative bastards), but also mostly bc I'm now spending most of my days hunched over textbooks muttering angrily over how bullshit math is 
> 
> Grimm's mental dialogue can be found in the bottom notes, if you find his nightmare text difficult to parse through

“So let me get this straight,” Hornet said. There was a strain to her voice that betrayed how little patience she had left, and the tic had traversed up to her arm. The Hollow Knight, apparently concerned for their sister, had taken to full-on resting their head against her nail arm to try to calm her, hardly reacting when she jostled them. “The Old Light- the one that Hollow tried to seal away, the one that caused the Infection, that Old Light- had been reborn into the physical world. And she’s here. In front of us. Right now.”

The Radiance, already halfway through her stack of leaves, nearly sighed. Breakfast had gone as well as anyone could hope, after such a chaotic introduction to the day- she had been hoping that the tranquility would last longer. If there was one saving grace for the whole ordeal, it was that nearly everyone involved had been hungry, which had relieved a little bit of the tension once they got their fangs into some food. Only Grimm refused to eat a proper meal, but the Radiance had caught him discreetly licking the Grimmchild clean when he thought no one was looking, his instinct to care for his child overriding his urge to fast for the Ritual’s last act. Even the Shade Lord had taken some food, though from what the Radiance had seen of their actions, they had merely studied it for a little bit before it disappeared under their cloak. It had yet to make a reappearance, so as far as she was concerned, it counted as them eating.

But Hornet had little interest in the sanctity of a good post-meal silence, and had demanded answers as soon as she finished her first slice of crawlid, liquefied bug and venom still shining on her fangs as she spoke. Even now, after wiping away the last of it with a napkin, the Radiance could still see the foreboding jet-black gleam of them flashing out from beneath her mask, glistening dangerously in the low torchlight. Herrah had wasted no time in teaching her proper spider intimidation tactics, apparently. 

“That’s right.” Grimm smiled pleasantly at her, baring his fangs right back, and that shut her down a little; Grimm had no venom in this form, but his teeth were a horrid jagged mess of sharp, serrated edges that put hers to shame. Even when not _ trying _ to act like a threat, he looked terrifying. “Not an unheard of occurrence for a god, but certainly uncommon. I can only assume that your smaller sibling considered her too weak of a target to kill a second time, for she poses no threat in this form other than the possibility of some singed fingers.” 

Oh, that _ bastard _ . She would not be reduced so! She would not let them think that they could treat her like a toy, no matter her indignity! Her leaves forgotten, the Radiance squeaked angrily at him, rearing up a little to make herself look bigger, and Grimm turned his grin on her, the horrible ragged edges of his smile not intimidating to her in the slightest. As if to drive home his point, he reached down and patted her lightly on the head, paying no mind to her squalling. “After all, she is ever so little.”

“Size doesn’t matter. She held no physical form before, and yet the plague of light still prospered, and Hallownest fell,” the spiderling hissed. She pushed the Hollow Knight’s head away with her free hand and turned to look at the Radiance, weaponized silk weaving around her foreclaws. It was an intimidating sight; Hornet’s gaze was as fierce and cold as her needle’s edge, her frame tensing up as if she was preparing to pounce, and the Radiance felt the Shade Lord flinch under her before relaxing again. Behind her, the Hollow Knight untucked their head from the curl of their arm and leaned around her to pick up another tiktik from the platter, the space between their mask’s point and the little bug’s shell blurring as their oft-hidden mandibles latched into its flesh. No matter how casual the movement might have been, the _snap_ of exoskeleton breaking was most certainly a threat. The Radiance curled her legs in tight to her body, and tried very, very hard not to think about what would happen to her if they decided to snap their jaws around her and shake her like a vengefly. “If she possesses that power now, then she is just as much of a threat in this form as she was in the dream realm. I would rather not take any chances.”

“Oh most certainly, princess, I cannot blame you for wishing to be cautious. But you need not fret, she has been quite thoroughly stripped of her titles. As of right now, she has about as much power as one of your siblings- perhaps less, for she lacks mobility, the agility to wield a nail, and the ability to care for herself properly. I assure you, she would not be sitting there if she had the chance to move.” He nodded to Little Ghost, who had given up the pretense of mealtime in favor of lightly patting the Radiance’s fur with both hands, like she was a drum. The Radiance, still fuming, hardly noticed it. “Without control over any realm, she is no longer a full-fledged goddess. She can touch only the minds of those who allow it, and draw some constructs from the dream realm if she expends enough energy, but that’s about it. It’s no different from your siblings altering their forms with void, or you spinning silk with soul.”

“And if I don’t wish to risk it? If I end her now, before she can develop into a new threat to Hallownest?” Hornet’s voice went dangerously soft. Her grip on her needle tightened, the tip swinging up into the air, and both vessels went into high alert, following the motion; the Radiance felt a shiver of terror race down her back as the Hollow Knight’s uncovered eye landed on her again, their mask tilting slightly as they looked between her and their sister. 

Not for the last time, she cursed her small stature and the limitations of her new form. All her instincts urged her to stand her ground and blast the threat to ashes, trusting in Grimm to keep her safe, but she was too small and weak to try to defend herself. All she could do was curl up tight, heart racing in her throat, and hope that Hornet had enough sense in her to not throw her needle when her sibling was right behind her target.

“Then you are more like your father than I previously thought, for only a Wyrm and its kin would look upon a hatchling as weak as this and see it as a threat.” Grimm’s voice was soft, mild, but the spiderling reacted as if she had been slapped, the tip of her needle gouging into the floor as she flinched back. She recovered quickly, hunching her shoulders forward with a thunderous scowl, but it was enough, for she made no move to threaten the Radiance again, nor did she immediately counter with a rebuke. 

...Curious, though, how she’d reacted. Though she herself loathed the girl’s sire, she had not thought that his own daughter would take such offense to being compared to him. She had, after all, participated in his foolish plan to save Hallownest, and the fathers of spider broods were not well-known for being overly involved with their clutches. Unattached Wyrm parents were notorious among gods for either being savagely protective of their eggs or horrifically aggressive towards their hatchlings, some going so far as to devour their newborns, but she doubted that the Pale King fell into either category; even regarding the vessel plan, his primary sin against his offspring had been neglect rather than territory warring. And his hatred for the rites of his kin were well-known even among non-Wyrms.

But she also knew almost nothing about how the princess had been in early life, as the Pure Vessel’s memories of her were oft fiercely guarded by void too tangled for her to pry through, and precious little of her retainers had remembered enough to be swayed by her light. Perhaps the Pale King had slighted her in some way, either through cold distance (likely), or by telling her the circumstances of her birth (even more likely). Stars knew how offended she’d be if the parent she’d never known told her that her existence was only brought about as a means to an end.

“If you think to insult me, you are far off the mark. My father did what he needed to ensure the safety of Hallownest, misguided though it might have been.” Hornet’s response was stiff, wooden, and entirely unconvincing. Behind her, the Hollow Knight had gone still again, the sharp angles of its body all tensed up under its ragged cloak. The Radiance felt the phantom sensation of their terror for failing their father echo through her, and winced despite herself. “I will not let the sacrifices he enacted go to waste, Troupe Master, for the life of the grub that caused such ruin.  _ Especially  _ when you have an uncommon interest in keeping her alive.” Her focus zeroed in on him, grip shifting on her needle. “If you think that bringing the bane of Hallownest back again will resow your feeding grounds, if you helped Hollow simply to place us in your debt, then-”

“An uncommon interest?” Grimm cut her off with a grating laugh, kneeling next to the Shade Lord. He did not seem to be at all concerned with her threats; perhaps the approach of the Ritual had desensitized him to the idea of bodily harm, for he was certainly much more mellow in the face of potential danger than the Radiance remembered him being in early life. Where had the fierce spitfire of a brother gone? Into Grimmchild’s creation, perhaps. “Dear princess, my interest in keeping this little fluffball safe is the very same interest that lead you to call for my aid! I care not at all for the fall of Hallownest, or the fall of future Hallownest; nay, for as long as there are bugs and gods still breathing, there will be kingdoms falling and Grimmkin feasting. No, my attachment to her is entirely personal; the little grub that you are so afraid of is my sister.” 

Hornet stiffened, staring at him in shock. Grimm smiled at her, and then he gently lifted the Radiance up out of Ghost’s lap, lightly stroking his talons through her fur when she tried to wriggle around into a more comfortable position. “Surprised? I’d expected you to be. Though we shared a realm at the beginning of the world, I have long since lost any familial resemblance between us. Our morals and values split with our realms, and our forms grew different not long after. But I find myself hard-pressed to hate her, though I resent her actions and the loss of who she used to be.” He nodded at the Hollow Knight, who had been watching them both with the detached sort of ‘interest’ that the Radiance was quickly beginning to realize was one of their cues for anxiety. Had she really been so blind, for so long? “Hear me, Vessel, there is no fault in your creation. The sin of emotion is a curse laid upon every living being, and you are not damned for being unable to handle it...or her. My sister is a terror at her worst; you might as well have tried to contain a wildfire with an empty wooden box. The ruin she wrought could not be stopped by you alone, nor have I ever supported her actions, banished as I am from entering non-failing kingdoms. How fortunate, then, that she has been reborn anew, where she may repent for her crimes.”

He gently squished the Radiance around the middle, smiling wickedly when she squeaked, though it was more from surprise than anger. He was doing his very best to mediate the situation, attempting to soothe tempers rather than ignite them like he usually did, and she could not help but feel cowed by his words. The sullen, angry thing hissing in her chest did not appreciate it- but who was she to judge, when she had felt the Vessel’s agony anew, and finally got a taste of what she had done to them? There was a long, long list of nameless bugs who had felt that same fear of possession, and the guilt felt like a guillotine posed above her neck. She could not begrudge him a little fun, even at the expense of her wounded pride.

With their lap freed, Little Ghost hopped back up to their feet and shadow-dashed over to their sibling’s side, patting the curve of their horn. The Hollow Knight’s head ducked low, then rested again on the edge of the nest, the void within their exposed eye socket churning; they made no other acknowledgement of Grimm's words, but the whistle of their breathing turned harsher for a few heartbeats, as if they were struggling to process what he had told them. Hornet, in the meanwhile, had turned her frown from ‘aggressive and indignant’ to ‘contemplative and grudgingly curious’, which the Radiance considered a huge benefit. “Then to what purpose did you help us? I see no benefit to you.”

“As a thanks for letting us dwell on these lands, and for the simple pleasure of being able to do the right thing.” Grimm stroked his claws through the Radiance’s fur and slowly lowered himself to the floor, sitting cross-legged with the siblings. “So often do we arrive too late to help in a catastrophe, and with the hosts so unreceptive to our presence. It is a lovely change of pace to a scavenger such as I.”

His tone was slightly sardonic, but there was a softness in his eyes as he looked over the two vessels, watching as they interacted. Little Ghost had started to lean against the Hollow Knight’s horn, guarding their blind side, and they were permitting them, though the tension from earlier had not yet fully disappeared. Even the Radiance could admit that it was touching, in a way, even if she couldn’t look at them for long without choking on fear and guilt. 

Hornet still seemed suspicious, but she didn’t press the matter. Neither did she apologize, but the Radiance hardly expected her to. Even exhausted and wary, there was a prideful tilt to her head that betrayed her status to anyone who had the eyes to spot it. She may not have been designated the crown princess of Hallownest, but she was born and bred to be a ruler, and even with the King’s Brand emblazoned on her sibling’s shell, it would hard to deny that she didn’t look the part. 

Behind her, the Hollow Knight nosed a little closer to the breakfast platter, their pitch-black mandibles latching into an entire loaf of cured meat, which promptly disappeared under the point of their mask. Little Ghost stared at them, fascinated, then gently placed a slice of bread on their head, right between their horns. Hornet didn’t notice. “And your reason for lingering about instead of taking what you need and leaving is…?”

“Are you really so desperate to get rid of me, princess?” Grimm chuckled, and it was a lighter sound than before, less harsh in his chest. The Radiance still felt her antennae buzz with the sound of it, but Grimm seemed to have a knack for sensing when he was stepping off of thin ice with murderhappy Wyrm hybrids, and was happy for it. “I assure you, it isn’t as sinister as you’ve made it out to be. I cannot collect the flames to feed my child; I absorb them within myself once I get close enough to do so, and once their essence has been parted from mine there is no way for me to feed it back to them. So my troupe is sent out to feed them for me, and the summoner must supervise to ensure that they adhere to their tasks. As well as provide the little one with some target practice.” He nodded at the Shade Lord, who had added two slices of meat to their sibling's head and was currently in the process of trying to make it a third. The Hollow Knight continued to eat their way through the breakfast tray, moving as needed with little thought for their little sibling’s antics, and they were struggling to reach around their horns to find the proper balance. Hornet, still focused on Grimm, continued to not notice, though the Radiance could hear the strain of him suppressing his laughter when he continued, “It is good training for them. Though there are other methods of sustaining this form, the fires are the main source of my feed, and I cannot expand the energy to let them use me as a target.”

Hornet frowned, but it was more contemplative this time, less defensive. The Radiance could practically  _ hear _ the gears turning in her head, her aggression draining as understanding clicked into place. She was still defensive, her mind shielded from outside prodding, but her relief was nearly palpable once she realized that Grimm held no ulterior motives. Curious were the minds of subadult demigods; Radiance knew she wouldn’t have calmed nearly so quickly when she was first rising to power, and she wasn’t as prickly as this hybrid princess.

But that was beyond the point. More important was the admittance that Grimm let his child spit fire at him, because  _ what. _

_ You let your future vessel use you for target practice?  _ She asked him, finally opening her mind enough to communicate again. She was weary of sinking into the sandtrap of the Hollow Knight’s thoughts, but without physical contact, their mind was closed to her, an empty patch of darkness that was impossible to parse.  _ Why on earth would you do that? _

**B̴͕́e̶̤̎ć̸̭a̴̻̾ű̴̗s̴̗̉e̶͓͛ ̵̻̈t̷̳̓ḣ̶̨e̶̱̚ ̴̮͑s̸͖͗ǒ̵̡u̵̮̔r̶̮̔c̸̙̓ḛ̶̈ ̶̰͗o̸̪͆f̸̡̚ ̶̮̓o̶̥͊ŭ̵̩r̵̨̒ ̷̬͝f̷͓͊i̸̘̍r̷̤͠e̵̦͂ ̸̫̒i̸̢͘s̵̲̕ ̶͇̉o̴̻͋n̸͚̓e̴̛̳ ̶̘͗a̶̯͐n̸͎̓d̴̙͋ ̶̣̽t̴̏ͅh̷̫͒e̶̬̿ ̴̟͐s̴̺̿à̷̜m̴̆͜ḛ̴̾,̷̼̆ ̸͇̈a̷͙̐n̶̜̓d̵͋͜ ̷̬̎I̶̡̽,̷̤̓ ̸̜̎f̸͕̎ő̶̼r̶̹̍t̵̛͙u̸̥͋n̵̬̔a̸͉̓t̸͓̕e̷̹͊l̶͜͝y̶͍̎,̶̼̐ ̷̊ͅa̶̹̅m̸̧̽ ̶̥͆u̵̘̽ŝ̷͖ù̸̠a̷̘͘l̷͉̉l̵͉̕y̴̩͂ ̷̡̈́f̶̭͒ĩ̴̮r̶͎͛e̶̦̕p̸͙̈́r̶͎͂o̷͍̚ǫ̴̏f̵̠͋.̶̨͑ ̶͕͂** Grimm tapped one of his claws against the top of her head, the sharp point barely noticeable through the fluff.  **T̴̑͜ȟ̴̟ȁ̵̦ț̵̓ ̷̨͝ï̴̥s̵̲̑ ̵̺̔n̷̝͐ǫ̶͆ẗ̸̲ ̵̿ͅt̶̩̅h̵̪̍e̶͎͑ ̸̢͝c̵̠̍a̵͈͑s̸̗͠ȇ̶̹ ̷͇͝f̴̏͜ǫ̶͝r̶̰͋ ̶̦͝ṃ̷̓o̶̹͌r̴̙̃ť̵͓ä̶̪́l̴͔̎s̸̯̋,̴̨̆ ̴̪͒a̴̼̿n̵̫̈́d̵̙̊ ̷͉̍ṯ̶̑h̷̨̍e̶̖͝ ̶̰̀H̸̰͐ệ̵a̸̅͜ȑ̵͔t̶̟͐ ̷͇̒w̴̦͂ó̵̝r̶̦̎k̷̜̔ṣ̵͂ ̴̯͠h̸̥̓ã̷̩r̵͕̉d̵̜͗ ̴̢̐e̶̘̚n̵͎̍ő̶̝u̴̟̅g̷͉̃ẖ̸̇ ̵͙̊k̵̪̍e̸͍͊e̷͊ͅp̵̻̐ḭ̴̂n̶̫͌g̵̭̊ ̸̛̹m̴͒͜y̷͇͗ ̶̫̒T̵̪̏r̸̬̄o̷̘͆ȕ̶̙p̶̣̈ë̶̦ ̵̦̇s̵̮͒a̵̜̚f̸̮͝e̷̼̐.̵̲͑ ̴̥̽**

Ah, so it was the division of power that stopped him to such indignity. She didn’t have anything to say to that that wouldn’t sound like a biting ‘I-told-you-so, so she settled for grunting in reply and wriggling so he could set her down, yielding to her hunger. Hornet was staring at her again, which made eating difficult, but it seemed more lost in thought rather than outright suspicious. 

The Shade Lord successfully managed to balance the slice of meat on their sibling’s forehead, wobbled backwards as they tried to straighten up, and tipped backwards into the nest. The Hollow Knight paused for a moment, then continued on eating when their sibling’s horns rose back into view, the little void creature wriggling out of the pile of pillows with great difficulty. 

Hornet still didn’t notice. 

“I see,” she said slowly. “So you cannot take the- your sister with you when you go? Surely you must have a better understanding of her needs than Little Ghost.” She eyed the Radiance’s leafy meal with distaste, as predators were wont to do. The Radiance tore off a bit of leaf and spit it at her out of spite, watching gleefully as the princess’s checlirae twitched in distaste. “Hallownest cannot feed another god.”

Grimm sighed dramatically (a little too dramatically, really, but if she couldn’t stop him then no one could), and collapsed into a more comfortable sitting position, folding his long legs under him. The Radiance felt one of his hindclaws bump her back, and hissed at him through her mouthful of leaf, a muffled noise that both god and demigod ignored. The Hollow Knight’s horns twitched slightly at the sound, but not by much- with luck, they were still trying to ignore her. Or maybe they were just trying not to dislodge their smaller sibling, who had moved on from meat slices and was now attempting to balance the roasted corpses of whole feeder bugs on their head. “Had our circumstances been any different, I would have gladly take her with me. But alas, I am afraid that is not to be. Our territories split long, long ago, and though she no longer reigns as queen of dreams, there are enough memories writ in her essence to make travel through the Nightmare Realm a little...difficult.” 

He leaned forward and trailed his claws through her fluff, brushing it back out of her face as she munched, and she curled in towards his warmth, pride forgotten in her chase for simple comfort. It was hard to feel afraid, with the juicy tang of fresh leaves crunching under her mandibles and Grimm’s talons combing through her fluff. Harder to notice the Hollow Knight’s presence through the haze of her hunger as they ate their own meal, though she was ever-aware of the static, crackling emptiness that hid their sun-blasted mind. “As for the issue of feeding...I think you may find that less of a problem than you might think. Wyrms, by rule, are consumers. They grow to massive lengths and depths of soul, and so they are always hungry, and in the lure of their light it is often difficult to gauge the extent of their wreckage until after they have died and the survivors have left to pick up the pieces. You know this well, princess, guarding the ruin of your father’s feast.”

He dropped his claws, fiddling instead with the seams in the floor. “But there is a new god in Hallownest now, and their hunger is of a different sort. If they even hunger at all- in this particular matter, I am just as blind as you are.” He stopped playing with his own tent fabric to give her an exaggerated shrug, bits of red and purple fuzz stuck to his clawtips. “I just came here to preform, propagate my kind, and commit arson.”

Hornet wore the resigned expression of someone who had grown used to the godly habit of running out of information at the worst of times, and was starting to grow quite tired of it. “Fine. We will figure it out on our own, perhaps after the backlash of the Infection has been dealt with. But that would require Hollow and I to agree to keeping it.”

What was she, some kind of household pet? The Radiance swallowed a mouthful of leaf and raised herself up on her back half, glaring at the princess, but her miffed little ruff-fluff went unnoticed as the Shade Lord tumbled over their sibling’s horns, knocking a piece of cured meat over their bandage and sending the little feeder bugs flying. They dashed  _ through  _ the breakfast tray in a snarled tangle of limbs and situated themselves directly in front of the Radiance, looking up at their sister in a gesture that might have looked pleading, had they the expression to make it.

Hornet sighed, and pressed her clawtips to the forefront of her mask, pressing the pads of her thumbs into the soft flesh right under her jaws. “Little Ghost, I understand your determination. I understand that you are more than capable of dealing with this. But you were only ever an ends to a means in this situation- your sibling has dealt with this far longer than you and I. It is only right that they choose what we do with the Old Light.” She took one hand off her face, resting her chin on the other, and looked over at her half-sibling, gaze lingering on the food resting between their horns. Perhaps it was a testament to her exhaustion that she didn’t ask what had happened; she only sighed again, and asked quietly, in a voice that clearly expected no real answer, “What do you say, Hollow Knight?”

The old vessel’s head turned to face her with all the smooth, easy grace of the White Palace’s void automatrons, empty dark eyes staring down into hers. Were it not for the shuddering whistle in their chest and the flickering darkness of their mandibles working through another section of fresh-kill, it would be easy to mistake them as such; too easy, to foolishly think of them as merely another mechanical construct of the Pale Wyrm, a mindless body of void finding life again through shells of soul rather than a child corrupted, their essence changed instead of destroyed, given fully to the darkness.

How foolish the Pale Usurper had been, to yield his children to the froth of the abyssal ocean, thinking he understood what power he was toying with. How foolish of her, to think that the creatures of shadow crawling up from the caverns had been the same as the constructs that her first enemy had used to tear and gnash at her flesh, try to claw back the dark that she burned away. She cursed her ineptitude with every breath.

And then she cursed it more when the Hollow Knight’s head turned towards her, staring her down, and whispered, in a voice that rasped and tore and scraped against the very essence of its being, in a voice that sounded  _ just like hers- _

“Fuck.”

It was horrible. It was hideous. It was a sound that was never meant to exist, a parody of her voice that scraped up through roughened chest plates and clawed its way out of a throat not born for it. But it was clearly hers. There was a strange, muffled thrum to it that she was sure was never present in her voice, a reverberation that held a hint of the roar the Shade Lord had loosed at her when it reawakened. The whistling, pained wheeze of their ruptured lungs certainly never accompanied any of her cries. But it was hers. Undoubtedly hers, and now Grimm had silently turned away from his idle observation of the Pale King’s broodlings to give her an off-kilter smile that told her that he knew exactly what was going on and that she was in  _ no way _ off the hook for that. 

...She  _ had _ given them a throat to scream out from, hadn’t she. She’d torn a voice into the voiceless, taught them speech and profanity in her off time when raging was exhausting and rare pity stirred in her breast. She hadn’t expected them to learn. She’d merely done it out of boredom, and a tiring sense of loneliness- she knew, after all, that the Pale Usurper would never hear his child curse back at him, had never thought the rudimentary screeches she could pull from it could manifest into spoken word. It had been deemed impossible against Void, silencer of sound, but apparently she had done it. And she had done it so well that now they were able to mimic her lines back at her, at their leisure, despite being technically impossible to do so. 

Oh dear.

“Fuck,” gurgled the Hollow Knight, and even though the sound seemed to bring them great pain to produce,_ they kept on going._ “Fuck fu….fAAAHHHHking shit mother...motherfucker. Plains blasted stars addled shitb-ball. Stuck. Fucking. Fucking stuck. Stuck with _ha-hatchling. _Shhhhiit. Ninety-nine...beer on wall…” 

_ That's all my speech! I taught you those curses out of the goodness of my heart!  _ she howled, out into the maelstrom of confused mind-chatter that basically all amounted to ‘what the shit what the SHIT’.  _ Don’t turn them back on me, you fool! That's not what was supposed to happen! _

“WHEN DID YOU LEARN TO SPEAK?!” Hornet screeched, shock turning her cry shrill. It cut over the broken mimic of the Radiance’s voice, a strange echo ringing through her head as the two sounds collided. Apparently, the girl had inherited some of her father’s enthralling ability alongside her ability to use Soul, though it was pitiful enough that the Radiance hadn’t noticed it before now. Little Ghost leaned forward, even more intrigued, and Hornet batted them away with one hand, still staring at her older sibling. “Not  _ now, _ Little Ghost. Hollow, who the  _ fuck _ taught you to swear?!”

The Hollow Knight rumbled a little, then turned their head away and spat a glob of orange-tinged void off to the side, their shoulders trembling with pain. Little Ghost, completely unphased by their sisters dilemma, puffed up their chest,took a deep breath, and- nothing happened. It should be impossible for an emotionless mask to look so disappointed, yet somehow they managed, either through the slump of their shoulders or through the strange heaviness that they emanated once they realized they couldn’t mimic their sibling.

“Question them not, princess, I doubt that they can give you an answer,” Grimm sighed, massaging his temples. “I recognize that voice, and that twisting of the body to yield it. This is my sister’s work, though I have_ no idea_ why she would _choose_ to teach them such profanity. If I recall correctly, the Pale King considered common curse words beneath him, or at least inadequate to express his anger.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Unless... the White Lady....?”

Hornet shook her head, her shock slowly dissipating as the previously-Pure Vessel coughed and shook silently, the strain of unnatural speech taking its toll on their body. “It was the White Lady who taught me the decorum of Hallownest, and she was clear that basic profanity was not allowed in the Pale Court. The brute honesty of my mother’s kingdom was unappreciated in my father’s, considered tactless and barbaric. It must have been your sister. Hollow, focus. You_ cannot_ keep reaggravating your wounds like this.”

The Hollow Knight obediently ducked their head, shell glowing white with power. The Shade Lord startled, shadow-dashing backwards on reflex, and then relaxed again when the heal went off without any explosions. They calmed down further when the Hollow Knight relaxed and inhaled deep, their sibling’s breaths coming easier once the soul stitched them back together, and padded back over to sit by their side again, soft little paws curiously patting around the old vessel’s throat. The Radiance got the distinct feeling that they were trying to figure out how to alter themselves so that they, too, could speak, and shivered at the thought of that horrible, vibrating roar screaming ‘shit’ at the top of its lungs.

“Well, whoever may have taught them profanity, you must concede that they were not in the wrong for using it there. You did order them to speak, after all.” Grimm tilted his head at the Hollow Knight, watching as Little Ghost interacted with their clutchmate. The adult vessel barely moved, letting them clamber back up into the nest with them to try to initiate play in their strange, clumsy way. “It is not in their nature to act against a direct order, even if it is not one expected of them. Am I wrong?” 

He seemed to be addressing the Hollow Knight, but they paid no mind to him, staring off into some distant point as they lay quietly, unmoving. Little Ghost didn’t seem to care, taking advantage of their stillness to climb closer, where they could play with the edge of their cloak. It was Hornet who answered for them, shifting her weight so that she was angled between them, as if she were translating.

“No. The King could tell them to do a great manner of things, no matter how outlandish or unfitting for a knight, and still they would obey.” Her gaze softened a little; perhaps she was recounting one of the many times the Pure Vessel was forced to ferry messages between the Pale King and his subjects, when he was too entrenched in a project to leave his workshop. As a ruler who prided herself on attending to her subjects the moment they prayed for her help, she had been disgusted by his negligence, but no matter what she had said to them about it, the Hollow Knight had stoutly ignored her. Maybe they had enjoyed it, in their strange alien way?

Hornet was still talking, though she didn’t seem very happy to continue theorizing about her siblings with a strange Higher Being, now that her shock had worn off. “I...suppose that cursing the caterpillar would not be out of place.” She turned one of her more contemplative scowls onto the Hollow Knight, searching their empty expression for something the Radiance couldn’t see. “Even if I didn't expect it.”

“Ah, reading between the lines of the order. Clever thing.” Grimm’s throat clicked, before giving way to another harsh laugh. “Yes, I can appreciate that. I’ve done that myself many times before, slipped between the territories of dying Higher Beings to get a grab at the goods before others came to feast. Well done, my friend, well done.” This he directed at the Hollow Knight, along with a little bow. They did not react, but Grimm did not seem to expect them to, straightening back up with an unperturbed expression. “Princess, I can tell you have questions for me. Let me answer what I may, while you are still grounded. If you take flight now, I cannot guarantee that you will be back in time to catch me before my final act begins.” He paused, tilting his head, then chuckled, a low, fond rumble in his throat. “Or before my child grows tired of listening to Brumm’s practice, and starts trying to play with him instead of listening.” 

“Certainly, Troupe Master.” The formalities were as stiff as ever, coming from her, but the Radiance could tell that curiosity won out over her caution. Still, she kept her needle with her as she rose, strung with silk and held at a combat-ready angle, mind similarly armed. The pale spider of Deepnest would not be taken off guard for a second, it would seem. “Let us take this to the edge of the tent.”

“As you wish,” Grimm rumbled, and drew a light bench out of the deep shadows of the tent, where it had been blending in with the shadowed clutter of various pieces of medical equipment. Hornet lifted the tent flap and bound it with a thin thread of silk, looking out over the bright red lanterns that cast defiance in the face of Hallownest’s eternal night. Grimm offered her a seat with a flourish of his cape that she ignored, speaking to him in a hushed whisper that did not carry back to the sicknests, buffered by the thick tent fabric and the sound of distant music.

Which, unfortunately, left her uncomfortably close to the Hollow Knight, still curled up in front of her now-empty platter of food. Their head was not angled towards her, nor did they seem to be watching her, but there was a certain quality to their silence that had her nearly crawling out of her skin. The Shade Lord was currently occupied with playing with their ragged cloak, the tent of their horns visible behind the massive sweep of the Hollow Knight’s, but she wished to take no chances with the vessels again, and began to inch her way towards Grimm. At least she knew where she stood with him.

It took longer than it should have. She was still somewhat bruised from being knocked about by the Shade Lord in their true form, and her belly was heavy with food. Still, she persisted, until she could curl up on a pile of clean bandages on Grimm’s offside. 

“...This goes beyond my father’s foresight,” Hornet was saying, with a cold detachment that betrayed her reluctance. “This is not within the plan of Hallownest. Why he did not See it coming, I do not know, but whatever backup plans he had, he took to the grave. I have no more knowledge of Hallownest’s future than other bugs.”

“You cannot weave a tapestry with one golden thread, princess.” Grimm’s voice was gentler than she remembered him normally being, the fiendish trickster of the past gone. “I have seen this shortcoming become the downfall of many Wyrm kingdoms in the past. One glorious future is focused upon, to the extent of all else.” He sighed, and his breath came out in a puff of smoke and sparks, curling in strange, writhing patterns through the dark. “They always think that their foresight guarantees a golden future, that their gift renders them infallible in the coming times. But futuresight without open mindedness is worse than going blind. Your father was no different.” 

Hornet angled her head towards him, looking like she was about to say something, then changed her mind and stayed silent, staring down at her needle. When she chose to speak again, she kept her eyes on her weapon, claws tracing the ornate etching on the blade. “You are strangely kind for a nightmare god.”

Grimm let out a bark of laughter, startlingly loud after the quiet of their conversation. Hornet flinched, leaning away from him, but Grimm just grinned and shook his head, fangs flashing eerily in the red light. “Ah, not many outside my Troupe have told me that! I suppose it is true, in a sense. Not all things terrifying are cruel, and many who seem to be kind often ending up being the cruelest of them all. Though I suspect that you wouldn’t have told me that had you met me earlier in this life. My weariness has gentled me, child, as it does for so many others who have seen as many sunrises as I. And with my child hatched and growing stronger with every flame caught, I confess to being a bit broody. They no longer require my assistance or care, but the desire to assist has softened me a bit. So yes, I suppose that I am unusually kind for being god of a realm so fraught with terrors.”

Hornet hummed, unimpressed, and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. The Radiance cringed at his admittance- such a blatant display of weakness, and to a child of the Wyrm no less!- but Hornet herself seemed less preoccupied with the vulnerability he was showing her, and more with something she had on her own mind. “And yet I am no child of yours.”

She sounded so bitter about it that the Radiance tried to touch her thoughts again, curious enough to risk caution, but the spiderling’s mind was a maelstrom and her mental protection repelled her as easily as if she had tried to land on a slippery glass dome. There were simply no footholds for her to latch onto, especially in this weakened state where the shadows shivered and churned at every turn.

“Need you be a child of mine to be comforted, heir of Deepnest?” Grimm lounged against one of the archways, the tips of his wings showing their iridescent red undersides in the glowing light. It was purely for show- there was nothing sturdier behind him than taut fabric and cable- but it did the trick. With the flickering red light of the torches catching on the flecks of red in his cloak and the strange, haunting edge of the music rising over the wailing of the wind, Grimm looked like an old, comforting memory dragged through the years and the mire of daydreams, no longer recognizable as anything but the ghostly sensation of a transient emotion. Here one moment, gone the next, and the faded red of his eyes was the flare of old cinders crumbling away in the wake of a wildfire. “I would not turn my back on a child in need, if they would ever think to call to me for aid rather than running away. I am not like the people who raised you, nor am I one of the gods who abandoned you. The gift of my care comes without a cost. That I can promise you, for as long as I may live.”

Hornet flinched as if struck, but whatever scathing reply she was about to fire back was cut short. From behind her, there came a long, low whistle- the sound of wind forced through a sheer passage, desperate in its desolation. And then, before the Radiance herself had any chance to turn about to see what was happening, there came a blast of void that knocked her forwards out of her little bandage nest, cold heavy darkness cutting her through to the core. 

Hornet shouted, and it was as muffled as if she had screamed underwater. Grimm, reacting quickly despite the circumstances, scooped the Radiance up and wheeled her about so that she was sandwiched tightly under the fold of one arm, the edge of his nearest wing-cloak draping around her like a shield.

From the center of the room, the hatchling who had become the Lord of Shades hovered motionlessly in a ball of pure, focused void, their bright white eyes staring out into nothingness. Time itself seemed to slow; sound grew warped and twisted back in on itself, like there were multiple layers of rock and water between it and the recipient. The Hollow Knight wasn’t much better, frozen still and dark with their eyes the same bright, pure white as their sibling’s, but beyond their silhouette leaked Void in thick, barbed strands, twisting and weaving in on itself in a motion that made the Radiance feel sick.

And then the moment passed. The Vessel’s shells regained their usual pallor, and the Lord of Shades dropped down to the floor in a heap of stubby limbs, now Little Ghost again. The Hollow Knight shifted, and breathed, tendrils of void retreating back under their shell, and before long they were patting about on the floor looking for their smaller clutchmate, pulling them back into the nest when their hand caught on something soft. It took the Radiance a moment to figure out that the whistle in the room had ceased, and that they were finally breathing easy, in a way that they hadn’t done for centuries. 

Little Ghost wriggled out of their loose hold, then hopped and skipped and danced their way over to their other sibling, looking up at the three of them in a matter that implied perfect innocence, as if nothing had happened.

_ What did you  _ _ do? _ She asked them, cross at the cold creeping through her fluff. They weren’t actively leaking void, but the cold heavy presence of it made it difficult to breathe. Beside her, Hornet muttered a quiet ‘what in the wastes’ and shifted back, peering behind them to where the Hollow Knight sat motionlessly within their nest, watching the going-ons with their usual calm, eerie stillness.  _ You can’t just use your powers in another god’s realm, that’s unfathomably rude-  _

**Siblings hurt! ** The blast of the Shade Lord’s thoughts and impressions hit her in an overwhelming wave of cold, and she flinched back, pressing against Grimm’s warm side. Still, the new god of Hallownest did not relent, pressing their mind into hers to clarify the meanings behind the few words they had.  **Broken shell broken thoughts leaking everywhere darkness lost sister-sibling sad-lost-crushing-angry-regret. Fix.**

“Did you do something to Hollow?” Hornet asked beside her, curiosity warring with her disapproval. She seemed less shaken from the outburst of Void than the Radiance would expect any normal bug to be, and gave the Hollow Knight a concerned look over Ghost’s enthusiastic little hops. “Are you alright, Hollow?”

The old vessel’s head turned, and without further prompting, they raised themselves back onto their haunches, pulling aside their cloak to reveal the mess of bandages at their chest. Hornet frowned, then strode back over to them and tugged aside one of the silk wrappings, the steel-strong webbing yielding easily under her claws. When she unwrapped enough to show the void-dark carapace underneath, she was met not with soft scabbing, or barely-sealed wounds, but a stretch of new scar tissue, healed soft shell spanning out over where there was once nothing but Infection. 

“Not fully healed, but it’s cleaner and more natural than Soul healing,” Hornet muttered to herself. Little Ghost followed her, looking up at her like a pet eager for attention, and she absently patted their face before looking up at her older sibling. “Stop me if I cause any pain.”

The small peek at the ruin she had wrought was nearly too much for her to handle, but Hornet seemed unbothered by the mess, carefully skimming the pads of her fingers over the new scars. The Hollow Knight stayed as still as possible, letting her check them over, but when she pressed lightly at a particularly gnarled mess of carapace they flinched back from her touch. She stopped immediately, looking strangely apologetic for a warrior who had threatened an infant goddess multiple times in the short time that she knew her, but the Hollow Knight just reached up and patted her on the face, just like she had done to Little Ghost. A minor display of affection, easily dismissable as a thoughtless mimic of her previous actions, but a display all the same, and this time, their hand didn’t shake as they reached out to their siblings.

Radiance curled herself up as best as she could, and hoped that that didn’t mean anything bad for her future well-being.

“Hollow! I can’t see!” Hornet complained, shoving uselessly at their wrist. They barely budged under her efforts, rubbing the pad of their thumb over her mask and- oh. Oh. They were trying to groom her, as a parent would do to a child. She recognized that motion from years of watching over caterpillars in the nest, half an instinct and half an act of affection. 

Oh, she felt worse than ever. 

Hornet grabbed their hand with both of hers and _pushed,_ finally freeing herself from her ministrations, and gave them a glare that had no real bite to it. Little Ghost, who had been rocking impatiently back and forth as their siblings had their moment, hopped even more insistently, their ethereal wings flicking out from under their cloak. This time, Hornet looked down to give them her full attention, and though her gaze was sharp and piercing, there was a hesitant fondness to it that made the Radiance’s heart clench. The Hollow Knight sank back onto their haunches with a quiet wheeze, and Little Ghost clambered up into their lap like they belonged there, listening with undeniable rapport as their half-sister muttered, “You did well, Ghost. No longer do I recognize the powers you reign over, but you’ve eased our sibling’s suffering by quite a bit. For that I must thank you, even if you’ve yet to confront the darkness still lingering below.”

Ghost bounced in place, their cloak fluffing out in a rustle of wings and dry chitin. The Hollow Knight’s great head drooped, lightly touching the tip of their masks to one of their horns, and for a moment it was easy to imagine them as a normal trio of siblings, congregated around a sicknest to cheer each other up. For a moment, it was easy to forget the flickering, writhing void behind the vessel’s eyes, the sharp cunning behind the blades of a spiderling who had spent far too much time out in the wilds alone, duty binding her from the moment she took her first breath.

Here were the children of her mortal enemy, he who took her name and her kingdom. Here were her prison, her jailwarden's daughter, her killer. In their faces, she saw the Pale Wyrm. In their minds she saw the ancient abyss that was her enemy, the cold aggression of a fledgeling Wyrm with a beast’s heart and blade. Two of them had threatened to kill her today already. One had cursed her, in a bastardization of her own voice. And yet...there were moments like this that reminded her so dearly of the moths she had watched over. The little moments, where a family that never had the chance to exist tried their best to fit together into one cohesive whole. The little things, that her war and their father’s had stolen from them.

By the Abyss below, she never wanted to feel like this again. This was almost worse than a true death- at least then she had been too angry to let it take properly. 

“See the things that you have done and learn to grow past it.” Grimm’s voice cut through the murk of her thoughts, his harsh, rasping speech a welcome contrast to her gloom. He was watching the siblings interact, quiet and distant and thoughtful. Melancholy, and it was so unlike the robust brother that she remembered that her heart ached for an entirely different reason. When had she lost him?  _ “Live,  _ Radiance, live to see them create a world that’s better off than the state that you left it in. Learn to let go of the past, learn to let your grudges lie. For my own happiness at least, if not for your own.”

Well. 

She supposed she would have to try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grimm: Because the source of our fire is one and the same, and I, fortunately, am usually fireproof  
Grimm: That is not the case for mortals, and the Heart works hard enough keeping my Troupe safe  
.  
.  
.  
Hollow swearing is something that I have been wanting to write since before I started writing this fic, you guys have n o i d e a. It's antithetical to their very nature and involves a great deal of Void flesh manipulation that was probably very painful and probably will eventually scar over, but I figured if Radiance can somehow get everything she possesses to scream in her voice, including Void beings, she would probably be invested in attempting _some_ kind of speech. Swearing is just the best bet for some venting purposes (as well as a great basis for weird bonding time with your jailer. You can't play card games with a Vessel, but teaching it to swear? Eh. Maybe). IF a creature of void were to attempt to make some sort of natural sound though, I always imagined it to be through stridulating, like vibrating chest and throat plates to create that low, eerie thrumming you hear in the Abyss/in the Shade Lord's roar. Trying to genuinely 'speak' instead of just communing through gestures and a single auditory cue doesn't get across that whole 'impress the physical sensations of your feelings and thoughts onto other people' thing that I see them doing, as I am finding out the hard way when trying to put Ghost's weird mental 'voice' into words on a screen


	8. Two Vessels and a Demigod Walk into a Town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey. hey guys guess what caused the update delay this time. Lemme give you a hint. it's the exact same thing that stopped me from updating before.
> 
> That's right! A horrible mixture of calculus and Grimm having refuse-to-shut-the-fuck-up disease
> 
> (seriously though he just would NOT shut his trap. 'Grimm, you slut, get out of the spotlight', I say into the darkness of my room, 'please. i have plot to move forward. I have shit to get done. Grimm. Grimm I can't go on like this. We all know you're a powerful sexy theater gay with technical dilf status but this story is not about you. Grimm PLEASE stop talking. Grimm. GRIMM') 
> 
> anyways hope you enjoyed the show lol, i wrote the last 4000 words of this all in one go to procrastinate solving divergent intervals or whatever fresh hell my teacher threw at me this time. don't do summer classes kids. seriously. it's not worth it. even if you're trying to speedrun to a phd it's just seriously not fucking worth it. gives you brainrot. but educationally. forced installation of math hardware. fuck a running cactus i'm tired

Little Ghost was insistent that they go off adventuring as soon as possible, impatient to gather the last flame, and as a very hyper Grimmchild exploded back into the room (with a very tired Brumm following behind, shaking his head), the Radiance found herself lost in a whirlwind of activity. Grimm wasn’t too keen on carrying her anymore; a strange, clicking croon had started up in his chest as soon as he saw his child and musician return, and she had been given back to Little Ghost to free up his hands for snatching the Grimmchild out of the air, so that they wouldn’t circle about his head as he walked over to talk to him. She continued to watch him as the baby god bustled about, trying to get underfoot, but he paid no notice to her, all his attention focused on his child and the troupe member who had come into the sicktent. 

“Greetings, dear friend,” he said, and there was a warmth to his voice that lent the term a deeper intimacy than what was normally intended. Hornet looked away, uncomfortable, and ducked out of the tent, but the Radiance felt not the same compulsion to try to escape. No, if anything, her interest was merely piqued- had Grimm decided to take a preferred devotee at last? She had been trying to get him to do it for ages. The benefits of one bug being specially attuned to a god’s will was immeasurable "I hope that they haven't decided to bother you too much."

"Only if you count endless demands for more playing to be a bother, master." Brumm's gaze swept around the room rather than meet Grimm's directly, his keen dark eyes glimmering at her from beyond the mask. She tensed up a bit at that, but it was nothing like the Hollow Knight's accusing stares- if anything, he merely seemed tired. Perhaps a bit melancholy as well- did he dread Grimm's coming death? That seemed like quite a silly thing to shed tears over; he would come back. And even if his mortal form failed him, his dream form and power over his element still held strong. It was as foolish as mourning the phases of the moon, or the ebb and flow of the tides. "I needed the extra practice anyways."

"Hardly, my friend. You practice your craft as diligently as the rest, and it shows in your sweet tunes. I've nary found a bad note in your songs, even on your off days, and your few slipups are nothing compared to whatever happens when I get my claws on a musical instrument." Grimm's smile quirked up a bit at one corner, tipping his head to consider the accordion slung over Brumm's back. "In fact, I'm tempted to have another go at it. Why don't you let me have another attempt, and we'll see if I've gotten any better?"

"No," Brumm responded immediately, angling his accordion so that it no longer hung within Grimm's reach. When he saw the Grimmchild peeking his little head out from under Grimm's cape, he threw his arm over it for added protection, angling away from the curious child's reach. Though his actions seemed alarmed, he stood against the might of two gods as if he were merely trying to fend off some overeager pets, a note of faint exasperation creeping into his voice as he said, "No, absolutely not. I don't trust your judgement when you're like this." 

Grimm laughed, red sparks flicking from between his teeth. Ghost, apparently bored with the proceedings, started to toddle towards the nest, a movement that sent a sickening lurch through the Radiance’s stomach before she saw that the Hollow Knight's impenetrable gaze was fixed unerringly on Grimm and Brumm, not her. They didn't look over when Ghost hopped into the nest, and they didn't respond when their younger sibling started to pull the blankets off of them to curl up in, so she allowed herself to relax. "You don't trust me anymore? But my friend, I have mellowed since our last parting! Just a little broodiness is-"

"Master. You chose to spawn the Grimmchild. On my  _ bed." _ Brumm, looking strangely content despite his melancholia, stabbed a finger at the offender. The Grimmchild squeaked in delight, and reached forward to try to nip it, but he avoided him with the skill of long practice. "It is  _ still _ on fire. I have been sleeping on a spare pad for days because it refuses to die down, no matter what I do."

_ Excuse me, what?  _ She tried to ask Grimm, disgusted at his impudence, but Grimm had no attention to spare for her whatsoever, and so did not hear her. His attention was devoted entirely to his musician, as comfortable in his affection for him as if there were not two other gods in the tent with him, as if he did not fear them growing jealous of his ability to hold bugs in his thrall.

Well. Perhaps the Shade Lord might be jealous of the ease with which he interacted with his bugs; she was not going to be bitter about this. No, she refused to. Her moths had abandoned her by choice- she bet that this bug would do the same, if offered a brighter, cleaner flame. Best to just let her brother enjoy himself when he had the chance.

"It felt like a safe, tranquil place at the time! Can you blame me for falling prey to my instincts? Anything and everything in existence slips up sometimes, my dear friend, do not blame me for my mistake," Grimm laughed. Grimmchild twisted about so he could look up at his father and cackled along with him, creating an unpleasant cacophony of noise that she alone flinched away from, the vessels taking no notice of it whatsoever. Ghost, carefully tucked back into the nest, was currently too busy trying to compare their stumpy little paws to the Hollow Knight's hand, and the older vessel's attention seemed to be caught between watching the pair of fools interact and keeping their smaller sibling from catching their soft skin on their claws. "The Heart will repair it, anyways. We will have no shortage of power soon, and the Heart fixes all it can, does it not? Anything can be replaced."

Brumm went quiet, and the jovial air between the two grew cold. The Radiance snuck forward, now thoroughly entrenched in her curiosity, but the musician didn't offer any emotional cues other than nervously running his finger back and forth over the strap of his instrument. Trying to prod him for details yielded her nothing; his fire-branded mind was closed to her, Grimm's mark of territory too strong for her to bypass. "Mmmm. As you say, master." 

Grimm's eyes narrowed a bit, sensing the change, but he said nothing. After a moment's careful consideration, he swept over to an unoccupied sicknest and uncoiled his child from around his neck, stroking his knuckles across soft, underdeveloped wings. Grimmchild arched and chirped happily under the touch, but Grimm stayed silent for a beat more before quietly saying, "I will replace the damage I caused. You will not suffer the indignity of a spare bed before the Ritual is over." 

"Thank you, Master." Brumm inclined his head, and looked again at the Radiance- no, no, he was looking at Little Ghost. A brief moment passed, newborn Higher Being and branded mortal staring at each other, before Brumm broke eye contact and turned back to Grimm. "Would you mind terribly if I took my leave?"

"Of course not, Brumm." Grimm tilted his head back to let his child shift into a more comfortable position on his chest, but there was an air of melancholia to it. Were he not so deeply invested in this whole parenting nonsense, the Radiance was sure he would have done something far more drastic, like drape himself over a chair or gaze wistfully into a wineglass or something else stupid. "Do what you must."

Brumm bowed, the accordion on his back creaking a quiet note of protest, and turned to leave the tent, exiting much quieter than he had when he entered. The Grimmchild mewled a farewell, but Grimm himself sat and watched the swinging flap for a good long minute before finally getting up to pace about. She tried to touch his mind again, testing the waters before she wasted her time trying to squeak out into the essence, but his thoughts were closed to her, steeped in sadness, and so she fell back into the nest with a great big huff of frustration.

Ghost's little hands found her middle, and patted lightly at her fur until she shifted around to face them, hissing. They stared back at her, impassive, and waited for her hiss to die out before resuming their patting. They seemed to take great joy in the springiness of her fur, and there was apparently nothing that she could do to dissuade that. Beside them, the Hollow Knight had gone rigid with discomfort, but even that unnatural stillness faded away as the tent flap rustled again, Hornet's long white horns popping into view above the wall of pillows.

"Hollow!" Hornet grunted, struggling into the tent, and...oh. She was carrying their massive longnail along with her, only barely keeping the tip from scraping against the ground. An impressive feat, given her size, but the strain of the task showed in her voice, the disproportionate size of their weapon making her seem young again. The Hollow Knight's head swung towards her voice, horns barely missing Ghost's, and some of the tension in their frame eased a fraction. "I hope the healing Little Ghost did gave you enough strength to wield your weapon. Retrieving it was no easy task." She heaved it up off her shoulder and to the side, propping it on the wall, then stopped. Considered the scratches, dust, and splatters of Infection littering it. Made a face that even the Radiance felt was a worthy reaction to the gore still splattering it. "Not that it is in good enough shape to give back to you. Give me a moment."

"Are you quite certain arming them again is such a good idea, princess?" The melancholy edge to Grimm's voice had faded a bit, but he made no move to hide his skepticism as he approached, eyeing the worn blade with a critical air. The Grimmchild wriggled free from his grasp and swooped at Hornet, squeaking in delight, a raspy, irritating noise that only grew in frequency and volume when Hornet swiped at him with her claws. "They have not yet fully recovered, and that blade is...quite lethal when improperly used. As you well know."

The cold shock of metal through their carapace, the effort it had taken for them to defy her and stab themselves again and again and again. Yes. Yes, she knew that nail was deadly, had seen and felt it carve shell and flesh like jelly. Little Ghost went still, their tiny fingers clenching tightly at her ruff, but the former Pure Vessel took no apparent notice of Grimm's words. They merely sat quietly, and watched their sister prepare a cleaning cloth, the mess of wounds they had inflicted upon themselves hidden below bandages and blankets. If they were bothered by their current existence, or their failure to die when it was merited, they did not show it. 

Neither did Hornet, though the Radiance knew for a fact that the girl had a vested interest in keeping her sibling alive. Instead, she pulled a cleaning cloth and bladekeeping oil from her cloak and set to clearing the Hollow Knight's nail of filth, giving Grimm a sharp stare as she worked. 'Do not accuse me of negligence. I know the danger, but I also know that it is far more deadly to be weaponless than to risk it. This is for their own safety." She tried to buff up a gap in the nail's engravings, and frowned when her claws found it to be a dent instead of a stain. "Not that the condition their nail is in helps."

"There should be weaponsmiths within Hallownest still, if my past experiences with your smaller sibling's blade is any indicator. No, child, get down from there, that is not for you." Grimm punctuated his statement with a sharp, shrill click, reaching out to snatch his reincarnation from the air again- he had found the supports, and had started happily chewing on them, ignoring the brief red flashes that lit up as the wards in place tried (and failed) to deter him. "Why not ask them? Doubtlessly they would lead you there, if you inquired so."

Before Grimm even finished speaking, Ghost started bouncing in place, bumping her in the air along with them. She squealed in alarm, trying to squirm away, but she hardly had a chance to lecture them on their uncouth behavior before they started wriggling their way towards Hornet, practically swimming through the nest of blankets before the Hollow Knight grabbed them by the cloak and gently deposited them back on the ground. 

That left her alone in the nest with the old vessel, and so, skin crawling, she dropped out after them, landing semi-gracefully on a fallen pillow. The Hollow Knight’s breathing stopped for a single, terrifying moment, but resumed a moment later, once they realized she wasn’t going to do anything. The Radiance nearly felt her heart stop along with their breaths, then chastised herself for her cowardice. The Hollow Knight would do nothing with the Lord of Shades so near. 

Though the Lord of Shades themselves didn’t seem too invested in keeping her alive right now. They were too busy bouncing in front of their half-sister, their gossamer wings flaring out bright from under their dark cloak. Hornet herself merely looked confused, her hand moving the cleaning cloth in slower circles over the nail's blade as she frowned down at them. "Little Ghost, I know not what you're trying to tell me. Clarify a little, please."

_ Clarify? Really? As if they are capable of clarifying anything with that useless mask,  _ muttered Radiance under her breath, for once grateful that her voice manifested only as meaningless squeaking. It gave her something to do as she inched her way closer to the younger of the two vessels, at the very least- Grimm was of no help to her, too busy with keeping various items out of his teething baby's jaws, and the noise of their bickering was starting to irritate her. Family was such a nuisance sometimes.  _ The only method of clarification that they have is to try to speak through the dream realm, and they’re as elegant with that as a Baldur in a glass shop. _

Apparently, this request for clarity stumped her half-sibling. Little Ghost sat down abruptly, folded their stubby legs underneath themselves, and stared off into space for a few minutes, paying no mind to the sounds of Grimmchild's shrieking laughter as Grimm tickled him. Hornet finished scrubbing off a particularly stubborn bit of pus, hissing under her breath as the orange flakes crusted on her claws, and Little Ghost watched her for a bit before they stood again, bouncing once, and withdrew their map from somewhere within the depths of their cloak, carefully unfolding it and laying it out on the floor. 

Hornet looked as if she wanted to say something, but sighed and remained silent instead, finishing her work with the Hollow Knight's nail as Little Ghost took out a box of map markers and began to meticulously pick through it. The Hollow Knight themselves shifted about so that they could see, a continuous silent presence behind them all, but only the Radiance seemed to feel any discomfort with them watching, as if the weight of their gaze simply did not register to the others. Hornet folded up her cleaning cloth and leaned back against the sicknest, waiting for Little Ghost to finish their selection; there was something in her face that seemed almost guilty as she watched them, but she said nothing of it, merely shifting closer to her older sibling. Even Grimm leaned around the Hollow Knight's horns to look, as if they were a simple roadblock and not a thing of void who had been created specifically to kill vastly powerful gods without relatively little effort.

After some more careful deliberation, the Lord of Shades held up their map, and the time it took for them to lay out a path made a lot more sense. Upon the yellowed, patchworked sheets, they had laid out a trail of pins, moving down the map in alternating colour patterns, fading from Grimm’s bright red to blue, to black, then back to blue again. Their destination they had marked out in a cluster of golden pins, and this they accented further by propping their map up against their chest so that they could tap at the pins with their free hand, staring directly back at their half-sister.

If Hornet was perturbed by her sibling's alarming show of artistic abilities, unique to the children of the void, she said nothing of it. Instead, she leaned forward, studied the path that Little Ghost laid out for her, and nodded her head once in curt approval. "I see. So this path leads to a living nailsmith? What a strange location- I have passed through Greenpath countless times on my patrols and never heard a smith at work. But perhaps the vines just muffled a sound that I never thought to seek."

She straightened, flicking flecks of Infection from her claws, and looked down at Little Ghost. "Very well, then. I will allow you to lead us on a detour. Hollow's nail requires maintenance desperately, and I've little doubt that we'd find some void-touched sleepers on the way there, so that you may see what you've done. Lead the way, Ghost of Hallownest."

Little Ghost bounced once, their wings flicking out from under their cloak in a blinding burst of light, then folded their map carefully until the side with the pins faced outwards, placing it in their cloak with a flourish of great importance. Their shifting about revealed the King's Brand upon their chest, bright white Soul burning against a carapace darker than night, and the Radiance swallowed down her urge to hiss. 

The King was dead. Her rival had lost the battle. The coat of down she wore right now was proof of that, no matter how reluctantly worn, and hissing at the Lord of Shades would net her no rewards. Especially since they were currently reaching out as if they wanted to pick her up, but had no idea quite how to do it from this angle.

(Oh, but how she wished she could crawl into the corner of the dream realm he had hidden himself in, so she may gloat over his broken corpse, so she could burn him away with holy fire, outshine his false light, destroy what little was left of him...But no, she was trapped here with his errant children, her powers had been stolen from her, and she could see no quick means of getting them back, with no one left to worship her.)

_ Well? Get on with it.  _ She inched forward a little, drawing herself out so that they could better see her middle.  _ If you insist on carrying me, you might as well do it properly. _

That was all the help they required. With an air of great importance, Little Ghost reached down and placed their cold little paws on either side of her midriff, hoisting her up against their shoulder. She clung to their cloak, resigned to her fate, and shot a sharp glare at Grimm, who was trying (and failing) to restrain his laughter from where he was perched in the background.

_ Don't you dare say anything, motherfucker. Don't you dare.  _ She didn't think the others could hear her. She hoped they couldn't. A repeat of the swearing incident with either of the vessels would simply destroy her.  _ Don't  _ ** _do_ ** _ it, Grimm. _

"I've never seen such a sight before in my many lifetimes roaming the world. A trio of fated siblings and two gods reborn! It's as if the old mortal tales of fated quests and destiny have come to life again." Grimm sauntered forward, grinning wickedly as he lightly tossed his child into the air for a flight boost. With a raspy squeak of delight, Grimmchild tipped head over tail and shot between the Hollow Knight's horns, swooping up with a goofy grin as the older vessel's head tipped back to look at him, tracking his movement clumsily with their one good eye. "What a fun tale you would make, graveguarders and fated vessels and worldenders, the lot of you."

Little Ghost tilted their head at him, but Hornet bristled, her fingers deftly working over her various traps and weapons as she checked them for stability. "I guarded that grave for a reason- one that you should not be privy to, Master Grimm." 

The Hollow Knight turned their head, silently responding to some hidden cue in her voice, and nudged her arm lightly with the tip of their mask, while Little Ghost nudged their cloak aside with one stubby paw to peer curiously at the King's Brand emblazoned on their chest. The Radiance hissed at it again on instinct, loathing crawling up her throat like bile, and then hunkered down behind the Lord of Shade's shoulder as three sets of dark eyes turned to look at her- one with suspicion, one with curiosity, and one with a blank nothingness worse than blatant damnation.

Stars  _ above,  _ she missed her moths.

Grimm, unperturbed by all this nonsense, merely chuckled. "The eyes of the Nightmare Heart peer into the darkest of dreams, my dear. I see all that sets fear into the hearts of living mortals and dying gods, regardless of whether I wish for it or not. It is merely in my nature, as it is for you to spin silk, or for your siblings to wander, or for my long-lost sister to throw hissy fits at the slightest inconvenience." 

That  _ son of a maggot.  _ She was sick of being used as a diversionary tactic! She was  ** _sick of it!!_ **

Her squeak of rage was a war cry that went unheeded as Grimm swept out a foreclaw with a pleased little grin, his cape swirling madly in the torchlight. "But enough of that! The last flames of this dying kingdom lurk in the depths below, and my own fire gutters down to cinders. Summoner of the Troupe, friend of the Heart, I urge you- make haste! Let our last performance be a spectacle to die for, a proper feast for our lovely child."

He turned to the Grimmchild, perched precariously on the hilt of the Hollow Knight's needle, and offered his hand to him with a flourish and a bow. The Grimmchild launched off the nail, delighting in his father's pride, and Grimm snatched him midair and spun in a circle, holding him high above his head as if offering him to the heavens above.

“Go! Live, laugh, play! Your joy is mine, lovely thing, this is your time to live and dance and burn bright! Mourn me not when the time comes to part- I will be with you then, in mind and heart.” He tossed him into the air again, and the Grimmchild shrieked in delight, twisting through the air before swooping down to land on Little Ghost's head, a raspy purr rumbling from his little chest. Grimm watched, a smile on his face, then fluidly swiveled around and bowed to Hornet, procuring a wrapped bundle from seemingly nowhere.

"Don't worry too much about providing my sister with sustenance, princess. She is a resilient sort, and can feed upon all kinds of plant matter, if she desires. But if she doesn't, and decides to pitch a fit about it instead, I've gone to the troubles of arranging a selection of greens for you to give her, when times are hard. All are bound with a seal of binding, to keep them fresh; they should last you a good long while, if you're careful. Between your sibling's strength and your endless wit, I've no doubt you can manage her easily enough." He smiled at her, holding his pose, and seemed to go to great lengths to ignore the Radiance glaring nearly-literal holes into his back.

Hornet stared at the bundle, then took it as if it was going to bite her, watching the distinctive red runes of Grimm's magic flare up as she ran her claws over it. She glanced at the Hollow Knight as she did so, as if her thoughts were cast far away to a sealed black door, before she looked Grimm in the eyes again and gave him a curt nod. "I suppose I must thank you for the resources. As long as it gets you out of this kingdom, and keeps the Old Light from plaguing us again, then it will be enough."

Grimm chuckled, adjusting the drape of his wings around himself. "Rest assured, your highness, I will not linger once my deed is done. I've no interest in the dance for the throne, only the flicker of the fire and the persistence of my own spark." He waved a claw at the Grimmchild, though the Radiance thought she saw him looking at her, too. It was hard to tell, though- the Grimmchild’s tail was currently flicking in front of her face, and fighting against the temptation to bite it was currently taking all of her focus. “The sooner your sibling retrieves the last flame, the sooner I leave. I will be out of your horns soon enough, I promise.” 

"Then we must move swiftly." Hornet tucked the food bundle under her cloak and slipped her needle from its sheath, scowling as Grimm's shoulders shook with barely-repressed laughter. Rather than say anything about it, though, she turned instead to her sibling, hesitating as she looked them over. The Radiance felt Little Ghost shift under her feet, and then they pattered over to stand by their sister, peering up at them. "Hollow? Are you capable of walking? If you are in too much pain, you are under no obligation to-"

She didn't have a chance to finish her sentence. Mechanically, the Hollow Knight rose, and staggered out of the nest, falling to its knees with a resounding  _ crash _ that made both Hornet and the Radiance jump. It dipped forward, heavy horns unbalancing it, then sank into a deep bow somewhere between both of its siblings, as if it- _ they-  _ didn’t know which one to submit to. They trembled with the strain of holding themselves in place, but didn’t move from their spot, even when Little Ghost reached out and placed their paws on their mask, a soft, careful touch that did not disturb the bandages wrapped around it.

“Hollow,” Hornet whispered, and her voice trembled in a way that made the Radiance look away, uncomfortable. The spiderling realized her weakness right away, however, and cleared her throat once before placing her hand on their mask, right next to where her smaller sibling’s paws were gently pressed to their face. “Don’t do this.”

The Hollow Knight did not respond. They remained in the bow, awaiting orders, and did not look at their sister, or their more successful, ascended sibling, even as Little Ghost began to gently pat at their face, and Hornet careful touch left their mask to clutch their shoulder, trying to steady the tremors wracking their body.

“They have lived under orders for so long. Do not be discouraged by them not knowing how to react, princess.” Grimm murmured from behind, his smoky voice crackling with his whispers. “Allow them an intermediate. It will take a long time to grow accustomed to a life without shackles, be they mental or physical.”

The Hollow Knight sank lower at Grimm’s words, but did not move. Hornet’s chelicerae worked, staring at them, before taking a deep breath, stepping back, and clearing her throat again and assuming a cold, orderly tone that made the Radiance’s fur stand on end. “Arise, Vessel, for we are one and equal. No longer must you bow before the King’s Brand.”

Little Ghost hopped backwards, wings flaring bright, and stared at their older sibling expectantly. Something seemed to pass from them to the Hollow Knight, a silent plea impressed through a stare, and then the Hollow Knight took a deep, shuddering breath, and lurched forward. Hornet made a noise of alarm, arms jerking forward to catch them, but they succeeded in getting their legs underneath them, and managed to rise to their feet, swaying with the effort of standing. Only by planting their longnail into the floor of the tent could they retain their balance, and it was a near thing- they may have been healed by their sibling, but the Radiance could remember how much of a struggle it had been to control them. How much their legs had trembled, keeping the weight of their body up only by virtue of the angry energy she had channeled into them, how their shell had creaked and groaned under her Infection as she moved them forward. Many, many years of hanging from chains while the body rotted away from the inside out tended to leave one struggling to stand, no matter how much magical healing was applied to them.

She shrank down deeper into her carrier, and hoped that the Hollow Knight was more occupied with trying to stay standing than glaring accusingly at the bug responsible for their suffering.

“It’s been a while since you’ve walked, hasn’t it?” Grimm shook his head, making a sympathetic tutting noise. “I would offer you a cane, my friend, but I doubt that you would make much use of it. Not when it would prevent you from drawing your nail, hmm?” 

The Hollow Knight slowly swung their head towards him as he spoke, watching him, but did nothing to affirm or dismiss his assumption. She did, however, think that she saw their shoulders relax a bit, some of the tension in their posture easing. If one knew where to look, the cues were there. If one cared enough to look, when they were too tired to watch themselves, it was not hard to see them respond to the things around them, offering their thoughts about the world in the only way they knew how. 

...This guilt would never go away, would it? This sickness in her stomach. Perhaps she deserved it. Perhaps she should cling to it, force it to sharpen her focus. She could not look at the ruin she made of the Hollow Knight’s body and accept that as a mistake. Even trapped, even furious and fearful of her final end, she had had no reason to be so cruel. 

She was better, once. Could she be better again? Or was this a brand on her name, a curse that she had to bear in her new life as punishment?

Little Ghost went still under her, then turned their head a little, so that one empty eye socket could stare at her. She narrowed her eyes at them, a mild flush of embarrassment sweeping through her at them catching her in a moment of melancholia, but all they did was pat her on the head before reaching up to displace the Grimmchild, swaying under their weight. Whatever they had to say on her suffering went unspoken, through sign or dream.

“Okay, so you can stand. Can you walk, Hollow?” Hornet’s voice still held a sliver of steel in it, but even she could not conceal the concern seeping through as she went to stand by her sibling, peering up at them. With them standing, their height difference was exacerbated to a nearly comical extent, but their condition left no one laughing. “You may lean on me, if you so wish.”

The Hollow Knight stared at her for a moment, then took a staggering step forward. Little Ghost dashed to the side, the Radiance squeaking in fright as her world briefly dissolved into ice-cold darkness, but when they came out of the dash, the Hollow Knight was still standing. They wavered as they walked, and their right leg seemed to drag a bit behind them, but they were capable of remaining upright- and more than capable of walking without their sister’s assistance, though the Radiance caught them leaning on their nail more than they seemed comfortable with. Hornet didn’t look too impressed with their efforts, but from the short amount of time they were together, the Radiance could already tell that it would most likely take a miracle for her to show anything more than grim dissatisfaction. 

“...Okay. Then I suppose that this is farewell, Master Grimm, for real this time. We shall no longer impose upon your hospitality.” She inclined her head at Grimm, and pressed herself closer to her sibling, so that she would be their first line of defense against a fall. “I have no idea if we will meet again face-to-face, for it is my sibling’s duty to deal with your child’s needs, but I wish you luck in whatever endeavors may come to pass before we next meet.”

“And to you as well, Hornet of Hallownest!” Grimm swept into a low bow, his cloak fluttering with his movements, then swept himself back up with a hearty grin. “Not lightly does the world weigh upon you, and yet you have shown some tolerance to an old circus master and his tricks. May your claws stay sharp, your family healthy, and your needle lethal! And perhaps, if you are so inclined, you could catch one of our shows before you go. Tickets are on the house for those so close to the summoner, after all!”

He then shifted his attention to Ghost, and held out a hand with a smirk. “And as for you, newly remade master of shadows- please, take good care of my sister. It is a heavy burden to ask of you, I know, but the both of us know all too well how it feels for a sibling to stray off the desired path. Here’s to hoping we may stop another tragedy before it could begin again, hmm?”

The Radiance stared back at him, a lump in her throat, and found that her words had failed her. Ghost gazed gravely back at him, and placed their paw against his palm, straining up as far as they could so that they could shake his hand in one sharp, decisive movement.   


Grimm grinned, chuckling at their antics. And then, with a flourish, he swept his cloak around himself and disappeared in a puff of red flame; a blessing, perhaps, for his ego, as Hornet made a face at his parting words that the Radiance could only describe as ‘intensely suspicious’ on a charitable day. The Grimm she knew would have lingered around to see how his audience reacted to his exit, and would have taken great offense at her displeasure; or, at least, the Grimm she  _ remembered  _ would have taken great offense at it. This new version of him was far older and far wearier than the fiery brother she remembered from the past, but he was also far more settled in his skin, assured of his purpose and his fate in a way that she was slowly starting to grow jealous of.

His child, however, did not share that maturity. As Little Ghost waddled closer to their siblings, trying not to trip over the Grimmchild's tail, a curious little snout made its way over their shoulder, snuffling out embers on every exhale. She crept back a bit to give her brother-nephew some space, but he pushed his face closer to hers, sharp little teeth poking out from under his lip as his large, dark eyes tracked the movement of her antennae, a look that she knew well.

_ No, you're not biting me, don't even think about it _ , she snapped at him, puffing her fluff. Little Ghost was too preoccupied with trying to get underfoot to pay much attention to the commotion draped around them, though they did wobble a bit each time the dream siblings moved, their small body vulnerable to being tipped over.  _ Stop it, Grimm, I'm not in the mood.  _

Grimmchild blinked, stuck their tongue out between their front teeth, and made a whining ' _ mrrr-nYEEAAAHH'  _ noise that she couldn’t quite understand the purpose of. If it had to do with gathering any of her sympathy, it failed miserably, as she was now much more concerned with the possibility of losing her antenna to sharp baby fangs than she was about the feelings of the owner of the sharp baby fangs.

She was feeling a lot more tolerant of his antics than she could remember from her first childhood, though. This time, when he tried to wiggle forward to nip at her again, she merely squashed herself in her carrier again, glad for the distance it provided between her brother's curious fangs and the chill from the two void siblings. Perhaps dying twice over had mellowed her out a bit, or perhaps she was simply too tired to deal with anything strenuous at the moment. Or maybe it was a mixture of both. She didn’t really care at this point, everything was hell at this rate. 

_ No,  _ she hissed, trying to keep her mental voice calm- the Hollow Knight was entirely focused on walking out of the tent without any help, enough that it was easy to ignore the sun-torn mess of their mind, but she did not want to draw the attention of the Lord of Shades or Hornet. The spiderling, she knew, would have little tolerance for childish hissyfits, but the last thing she needed was Little Ghost trying to blunder their way into her fights.  _ Do you want to tip the Lord of Shades over? Do you wish to crush me beneath them? Because if you unbalance them and they fall on me, I will die. Again. Do you wish to be the cause for my third death, Heir of the Nightmare? Do you? No? Then leave me ALONE. _

The last word came out a squeak, and she felt a burst of panic lance through her as the Hollow Knight turned to look at her, squashing herself even further down into her carrier to escape their baleful stare. It didn’t help her, not when they towered so fully over their sibling, but all they did was give her a withering glare before turning and shuffling awkwardly out of the tent, leaning on their nail the entire time. Hornet let them walk ahead a little bit, chelicerae nervously rubbing together under her mask, before turning back to her youngest sibling, picking the Grimmchild up and holding him out as gingerly as if they were a furious vengefly (...not an inaccurate descriptor, all things considering).

“You should walk ahead of them, Little Ghost. You are the one with the map- neither I nor Hollow possess the knowledge of their location. And I must aid them whenever possible.” Grimmchild wriggled, making soft, displeased beeping noises, and she let him go with an expression of deep distaste, swatting at him as he flew victory circles around her horns. “They act as if they bear no injury, and that recklessness concerns me. I do not wish for them to undo the work we have done to heal them because they have not yet learned to live free of the clutches of the past."

Little Ghost stared at her for a moment, then took to rummaging around under their cloak, drawing out their map with its neat little line of pins. The Radiance snuck a glance at the silhouette of the Hollow Knight, leaning on their nail like an old, feeble mortal, and felt yet another thread of discomfort twine into the tapestry of her guilt, made worse as Little Ghost approached them and she could see how they trembled with the effort to stand, not reacting even when the Lord of Shades reached up and patted their leg.

The spiderling sighed, then brushed past them both to stand by the Hollow Knight's remaining arm, looping hers around it so that their forelimb rested on her shoulder. She did not look at them. She did not say anything about their condition, or her misgivings, or offer them words of quiet comfort, as the Radiance often did to her wounded subjects. She merely tugged on their arm, and said "come along, Vessel", and they lurched off towards the town with their nail angled so that the edge could not cut her, that simple act of thoughtlessness the only cue that there was anything under their mind's barriers than still void and static nothingness. 

Ghost hurried to refold their map, slight panic expressed through their fumbling, and then they took off after their siblings, rushing as fast as they could to try to keep up with them. Their little legs pattering quickly over the ground made for a bumpy ride, and the Radiance risked climbing up out of her carrier a little to cling to their shoulder again, looking around as they drew closer to their family. Grimm’s unsettling scarlet aura only extended slightly into the blue of the night; a tactic, she supposed, to not draw too much attention from rival gods. There were none left in Hallownest who'd take offense at his presence, and his aura would soon be scoured clean by the wind whistling in from the wastes, but playing cautious paid well.

Luckily for the Shade Lord, their siblings were moving at a snail's pace...or, more accurately, at the pace of a snail that had been shot in the leg, and was currently trying to hurry along as if nothing had ever happened to them. Not inaccurate, as the Hollow Knight struggled to reclaim the rhythm of walking after centuries of inactivity, as clumsy as a babe without her power to puppeteer them around. Hornet was helping to keep them steady, but she was silent as she walked, utterly focused in helping them shuffle along the little cobblestone road. Little Ghost darted up to their siblings, stopped, then carefully adjusted their spacing so that they were just a little ahead and to the side of the Hollow Knight, looking up at them every few steps as if they were afraid of them collapsing on them.

“Ghost,” Hornet snapped, her voice tight with strain, “are the stags still running? We cannot walk to Greenpath with Hollow in this state.”

Little Ghost looked up at her, made a strange gesture with their free hand, and then flapped up into the air once, pointing out at a building crowned by the King’s blasted sigil. Their little hop placed them directly in their sibling’s path, but this time they did not fix their positioning, puffing out their chest with a self-important air as they directed them closer and closer to the town bench.

Their sister scrunched her chelicerae, seemingly startled by this knowledge, but said nothing of it. Instead, she took a deep breath and fixed her gaze on the Stag Station’s glowing archway, as if she could teleport them all there by sheer will alone. “Good. Hollow, I don’t know how easily you’ll fit through the gate, but if we can get you down there then I will talk to the stag about letting you ride in one of the carriages. If any are still left, anyways.” 

The Hollow Knight did not respond. The Radiance looked up at the massive bug towering above her, tried to imagine them skipping past the pools of acid riddling Unn’s domain, and shuddered. They were too focused on staying upright to notice her staring, but that did not take away the fear she still felt at seeing just how  _ huge _ they were compared to her current form. They could easily hold her in their remaining hand, or snap her in half with their twisted, wyrmlike jaws. 

They were also shaking with the effort to stand, weak from years of dangling lifelessly from chains. Their one good eye stared dully ahead at the ground below, pain clouding their vision. Their breaths still came in soft whistles- dulled, now, from the harsh, painful breaths of before, but still not quite healed. Most likely, it never would truly go away. They were broken inside, both by the Pale Wyrm’s conditioning and her tearing hatred. 

She could not blame them if they were to attack her again. Not really. 

Finally, they reached the bench. The Hollow Knight sank to the ground near it with a pained wheeze, their head dipping down towards their folding knees, and did not heed to their sister’s grunt of effort as she struggled to keep them from collapsing. Just that little walk from the Troupe’s tents seemed to have taken all their energy from them, and now they had no other choice but to lean against the town bench, too large to lay on it like other weary travelers might. Little Ghost hopped up onto the seat, and reached up to steady them, but they could not offer their sibling the same sort of refreshment that they got from it, their void nature rendering them incapable of harmlessly passing Soul between them.

Hornet hovered by their shoulder for a moment, looking indecisive, before motioning towards the Stag Station with a sharp jerk of her head. “I’ll go call the stag and ask them if any of their heavy passenger carriages still work. Hollow, I don’t think that you should come with, but...if you wish to stay with us, then take this moment to rest and recuperate. Little Ghost, watch them.”

Ghost tipped their head at her, then dropped down onto the bench seat with a  _ plop _ of void, leaning as close to their sibling as they could; the Grimmchild stopped hovering around their horns and dropped into the Hollow Knight’s lap, snuggling up against their abdomen. Hornet surveyed the pile of them, face grim, and turned to match off towards the Stag Station, disappearing into its depths.

_ Your half-sister is a terror, _ the Radiance squeaked at the Lord of Shades, once she felt like it was safe enough to speak again- or, at least, as safe as it could ever be, with the Hollow Knight so near.  _ I don’t know how you remain so comfortable in her presence.  _

The Lord of Shades turned to look at her, the void in their eye sockets flickering contemplatively, and then shrugged. The faintest flicker of their thoughts brushed against hers, cold and damp and unwelcoming, before they retreated back within the safety of their own mind and leaned against the arm of the bench, relaxing into the relative silence of the fading town. With so many of the homes empty, and the after-breakfast hour encouraging laziness in its remaining residents, there wasn’t much going on in the little intersection that made up the town’s center. Only the whistle of the breeze and the faint sound of the Grimm Troupe’s music drifted through the air, and the Radiance began to lapse into the song of the wind, so familiar after many long millenia drifting in its embrace. 

Alas, the peace was not to be. Hardly a minute had passed before the annoying bug- Zote- made an appearance from one of the shops, scowling and muttering angrily about exorbitant prices gouging his geo stash. His angry muttering was irritating enough after the racket and clamour of the morning’s arguments, but it was made worse when he stopped, and stared at the Hollow Knight, legs braced apart in the pose of someone who was about to start shit and thought that he would be hot shit because of it. 

“Oi!” he barked, harsh voice cutting through the wind’s whistle; only Little Ghost reacted to his call, and that seemed to piss him off further, his chest puffing up as he reached behind him and drew his useless shellwood nail. “Oi! You! Massive beast hogging all my light! Stand up and face me like a bug!”

Slowly, the Hollow Knight turned to look at him, the faint wheezing in their chest worsening as they looked over their opponent; Zote did not seem to notice the frankly unreasonably massive nail propped up on the bench behind them, or the way the shadows writhed the longer they stared at him. Instead, he drew himself to his full, unimpressive height and pointed accusingly at them with one dull claw, waving his fake weapon around with all the conviction of a bug who never knew when to give in. 

“Yeah, you! Who do you think you are, coming and hogging up all the light? I like to sit at that bench, you buffoon! Some of us need the light to see!” He waved his nail about, punctuating his words, and set his hands on his hips with an angry huff. It was frankly quite embarrassing to watch. “Don’t you know who I am?”

The Hollow Knight did not react, but the Radiance thought she saw a hint of confusion, swimming around in the dark depths of their uncovered eye socket. They did not seem to know what to do with this strange shouting bug, nor could they muster the energy to react to his taunting. Little Ghost did not quite seem to know what to do with him, either- despite being more than capable of ending his sorry life, despite being well within their right as a god to do so, they merely tipped their head at him and watched, like he was some rather fascinating state of fauna undergoing a horrible metamorphosis. 

“What’s all this?” Hornet’s cold, sharp voice pierced through the beginning of Zote’s new tirade, a new thread of glimmering silk arcing through the air as she drew her needle. Her red cloak billowed menacingly as she placed herself between her sibling and Zote, staring him down with her weapon held at the ready; the scene would almost be funny, if the Radiance didn’t feel a sliver of fear shiver through her at the sound of her voice. How could one half-mortal sound so similar to her accursed father? And how could that blasted idiot be facing down such a threat as if it was nothing? He didn’t even have a weapon to defend himself with. “Who are you to challenge Hollow like this?”

Her sharp tongue drew more attention than she probably wished for; looking around, the Radiance could see a diminutive fly peering from the doorway of the shop Zote just exited from, looking rather disgruntled, and the worried face of an elderly bug from a window. Craning herself back around to look behind the scuffle also revealed the beetle girl from before huddling in the shadows of her house, looking at once enraptured and terrified by the confrontation. Hornet tensed, seeming to realize that she was drawing an audience, but she did not back down, nor did she look away from her prey.

“Who am I? Who am  _ I?! _ I am Zote the Mighty, a knight of great renown! Watch your tongue, wench, and keep your monsters off my bench. I have no time for these foolish games.” And he drew himself up and marched closer to Hornet, holding out his pathetic little stick like he thought he actually had a chance in a fight with her.

She swung her needle about so that the tip kissed Zote’s neck, stopping him cold in his tracks. Softly, deadly softly, she whispered, “Your name is meaningless and your title is a lie. Swing once at me with that training toy, and I will cleave your head from your shoulders and leave your bleeding body out here for the ghosts to find. Your name will go unsung, your deeds will go unwritten, and your spirit will wander through the depths of these hallowed halls as one of the nameless, faceless horrors, with no rest for ages past. Insult my family one more time, and I will make it so. By my name and my blood, I swear it.”

Zote scowled thunderously, puffing up his chest- but with a squeak of terror, Beretta burst into the scene, and dragged him back away from the blade, placing herself between Hornet and Zote. Her face was flushed with her own daring, and she could not meet Hornet’s eyes for long, but it was enough to save his useless life, as Hornet flinched back from the shock of seeing her appear at the end of her needle.

“P-please, scarlet warrior, spare this knight! He has a good heart, I swear of it. He merely wishes to protect th-this place from ruin.” Zote’s face went through an interesting arrangement of expressions as Bretta stuttered her way through her speech, but he made no move to stop her, his chest puffing up as the poor, brainwashed grub inflated his ego. “Surely a few misplaced words are not worth an execution?”

“Hardly so. He deserves worse. He has insulted the honour and name of a knight who has done far more for this ruined city than he could ever dream of; in Deepnest, he would already be dead.” Hornet spun her needle so that the light of the lumaflies flashed over its silver blade, enhancing the glow of her soul-spun silk. Bretta flinched, but her blush deepened as she watched the light dance off its shining edge.

“W-what knight? Oh,” She breathed, jumping as Hollow tilted their head to look at her, resting their chin on Hornet’s needle arm. Curiosity brightened her gaze, but bashfulness claimed her tongue again; she could not seem to look away from them, or the numerous bandages spotting their body. “Oh, wyrm.”

“Wyrm indeed,” Hornet said bitterly, then pointed her needle at Zote once more. “Know your place, cur. I have no time to entertain your lies. There is business below that I have to tend to, and if you dare get in my way again then I will end you before you have a chance to draw your useless nail.”

Zote swelled to nearly twice his size, his rage nearly palatable, but the Hollow Knight shifting to stand back up drove all the air out of him, an effect lengthened by Grimmchild tumbling out into the air with a raspy shriek of surprise. Though they wavered in place, still relying on their needle to steady them, they seemed much more sure of their legs than they did before, more certain of how to balance themselves without causing more injury. Bretta gasped again, a high-pitched squeak of awe and terror, but Hornet paid no mind to her, turning all her attention to her sibling’s needs.

“Hollow, are you alright? The stag has gone to find a carriage.” She pressed her shoulder to their leg, allowing them some support, and the Hollow Knight looked down at her, letting out a soft whuffle in response. Hardly much of an affirmation, but it was more than what they had offered in the way of communication thus far, and Hornet’s shoulders drooped with relief, a softness coming into her tone as she helped guide them away from the bench. “Good. He said that he should be able to put it on by himself, as the machines within the stag nest still work as intended.”

She glanced back at the Lord of Shades, still perched on the bench; Zote was back to mumbling darkly under his breath, but no one but the Radiance seemed to be paying him any attention. “Little Ghost, he has told me to thank you again for helping him to remember the location of the nest. I had not realized just how involved you got with the workings of the kingdom.”

The Lord of Shades tipped their head at her, and then vaulted off of the arm of the bench, jostling the Radiance in her carrier. She squeaked irritably at them, disliking being jostled about, but they only gave her a single distracted pat behind the antenna before running in a little circle around both of their siblings, happiness buzzing off their thoughts in short static bursts. Bretta giggled shyly, almost as if she was worried about getting caught, and the Lord of Shades flipped around to wave at her once before taking off towards the Stag Station, oblivious to the startled gasp she made at their parting. Adorable, but  _ not _ something the Radiance appreciated; her little stomach was apparently a lot more sensitive when she wasn’t directly in control of her movements, and the last thing she wanted was to show weakness before the Hollow Knight, when she was vulnerable enough already.

_ By the wastes, calm down, you’ll make me sick! _ The Radiance squealed, tapping her little foreclaws on their shoulder; it did not matter much, not when they were already halfway in the station and waiting impatiently for their siblings, but she did not want them to think that her newfound guilt made her weak to their whims. She was the Radiance! She was the sun! The light! The old ruler of the dream realm! She was- 

Ugh. She sounded like Zote. The comparison was disturbing enough to drive the wind right out from under her wings, and she scrunched her mandibles and hunkered moodily down against their shoulder so that she was less prone to getting knocked about. 

The close proximity of the Stag Station to Dirtmouth’s bench meant that walking the Hollow Knight to the doorway was less painful than walking them from the tents- but getting them into the Stag Station was more of a hassle. It was not long before they were kneeling down and awkwardly angling their head back to try to fit their horns in under the archway, their breaths wheezing with the effort of bowing down when the entirety of their chest was only newly healed. Hornet squeezed by them, hissing with effort, and took their nail from them so that they wouldn’t have to drag it behind them, watching with a frown as they tried to fit themselves in. 

“Hollow, can you not teleport in? Or would that be too taxing for you?” Hornet paced around the small room, looking like a caged beast. The Hollow Knight’s nail was long enough that she did not need to let go of the handle to ensure that it remained off the floor. “If you wish, Ghost and I can move aside-”

Her unfortunately large sibling stilled, and, with a flash of darkness that made the Radiance’s claws curl, they teleported their way in, staggering clumsily as they rematerialized. Hornet stifled a shout as their horns clipped against her, knocking her into the wall, and the Radiance’s vision flashed to black for a single, heart-stopping moment as the Lord of Shades shadow dashed to get out of their way, the flailing tendrils of the untamed void within them slapping old advertisements off the walls with wild abandon before they came up on their sibling’s armless side, trailing darkness clinging to the white of their mask in the shape of their ascended form before it faded away beneath their cloak. The Radiance found her voice again, all the tension and fear in her emerging as a single squeaky, high-pitched shriek, and with a startled jerk, the Hollow Knight stepped directly onto the trigger plate for the elevator, their knees giving out as their horns hit the ceiling and forced them back down towards the floor.

The Hollow Knight had a brief second to look embarrassed before, with a clank, the elevator underneath them dropped, lowering them down to the ground below with a wail of protest, a foreign grunt of surprise coming from the stag. Hornet made a stressed, frustrated noise, then stuck a thread of silk to the side of the elevator shaft and lowered herself down, taking care not to drop directly on top of them and injure them more. The Grimmchild let out a shriek of pure delight, harsh cackling echoing in the tiny space, and dropped down into the shaft trailing embers, apparently oblivious to Hornet’s angry shouting and the stag’s nervous snorting as he hovered around their heads. 

Five heart attacks worth of stress, all crammed together into one morning? She hated this already. It was a miracle that Hallownest had not fallen before her reawakening, if the children of their monarchs did  _ this.  _

_ I take it back. It’s not your sister who’s the terror, it’s your entire family, _ she grumbled, shaking out her ruff to rid herself of the feeling of the abyss on her fur. So dark, so cold, so damp, yet  _ not,  _ and if she had the chance to groom herself then she’d take it in a heartbeat, but she didn’t want to take  _ any _ of her claws out of Little Ghost’s cloak, even for a moment. She was justified when, rather than wait for the elevator, they simply hopped into the shaft and let themselves drop, her squeak of discomfort muffled by the shriek of protest the elevator made as it tried (and failed) to rise under the combined weight of three wyrm hybrids and one angry caterpillar. 

The stag, bless his heart, did not mention the broken elevator, or the laughing demon child dancing through the air, or the way Hornet was currently holding her head in her hands and muttering about the unfortunate decline of the menderbug guild. He merely looked at the tangled mess of limbs that made up the Hollow Knight, looked at the little god waving happily at him from their perch behind their sibling’s horns, and then said, in the tone of voice of a bug who knew not to ask, 

"I can see why you told me to fetch the carriage, m’lady. Now it’s off to Greenpath with ye, eh?”

And Hornet took her claws from her mask, looked around at her family struggling to rise around her, looked at the Grimmchild madly ringing the stag-summoning bell, and said, in a strangled voice, 

“Perhaps.”

The Radiance found she had the free limbs to facepalm after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Is Brumm's bed okay', you may ask. The answer is yes but it died
> 
> (Whether or not you think Grimm conceives the Grimmchild biologically via parthenogenesis, magical fuckery, or idk, mitosis or what-have-you, my hot take [heh] is that it always involves a shitton of fire. Personally, for this, I imagined Grimm perched upside-down with his cloak flared out, his claws hooked, and his eyes glowing as everything around him rose up in dancing flames, but I can also see someone as dramatic as him just setting shit on fire because he's broody and cranky and magically loses control of his flames when he gets worked up over shit. Brumm probably has had to dump water on him multiple times in one day for looking at something so cute he combusts in the weeks leading up to the Grimmchild's creation. He is Tired)


End file.
